


Threadbare Gypsy Soul

by SuedeScripture



Series: Beyond the Sea Universe [3]
Category: Actor RPF, Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-01
Updated: 2010-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:14:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 99,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuedeScripture/pseuds/SuedeScripture
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s human nature to bury our secrets. The fear lies in digging them up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to a previous story, _Beyond the Sea_. Read that one first, as this story picks up where that one left off and won't make a lot of sense otherwise.

_Thursday, September 21st_

A picture frame on the wall shuddered as the Dom slammed the apartment door. He proceeded to toss his briefcase uncaringly under the desk, where it skidded to a halt along the carpet and collided with the power strip, knocking the computer unconscious and wiping whatever had been on it out of existence.

Billy sat on the sofa, leaning against a cushion at one end with his legs crossed at the ankles along the seat. With one finger marking its place in a book, the other pulling off his reading glasses to greet him, Billy was calm and relaxed and clearly having a perfectly fine evening.

“Dom—”

“Don’t,” Dom cut Billy off with a sharp look. He wrenched his coat off and threw it over the back of the desk chair, where it promptly slipped off. Letting out an irritated huff, he grabbed it up and hastily tossed it over again. It slipped off a second time.

“Dom, it’s all right, just leave it.“

“No, okay?” Dom exploded at Billy, grabbing for the coat again, “It is _not_ bloody all right. I’m sick and fucking tired of being told it’s all right, to get out of the bloody way by fucking police and animal control and the goddamned condemned housing commission because everybody seems to think their job is more important than anyone else’s and no one in this entire fucking city can be arsed to work together to get something fixed and over and done with. I can’t fucking sit by and be told that I have to leave it and wait my goddamned turn to do my job, do you see that?” With that, he shoved the coat down over the back of the chair hard so it would fucking stay put, the force of which audibly ripped the lining in the shoulder.

He stalked to the bedroom, kicked his off his shoes and yanked off his jumper, cursing when it got tangled with his loosened tie. “And another thing,” he growled, stepping back out to the living room for a moment, “Why is it that I’m working for a god forsaken government that can’t even be bothered to update its laws? It’s a fucking scam is what it is, one giant mixing bowl of whatever the fuck someone cared about once and has been forgotten, that’s what. No one gives a fuck, unless it happens to their kid, their family.”

Back in the bedroom, he yanked his tie over his head and stripped the shirt off roughly, popping a button off. “Yeah, and fuck you too,” he muttered to the rogue button that had landed on the bedspread. The day — scratch that, the entire week – couldn’t possibly get any worse.

In the bathroom, he flipped on the shower, changed his mind and switched the lever to run a bath instead. He grabbed his toothbrush and did a quick once-through to take the foul taste of bile from his mouth. It had sat there for hours after he’d ducked into a deli toilet outside of the hospital, to get a door between himself and that damned crease between Sean’s brows that showed up whenever he was certain Dom wasn’t handling things. Shimmying out of his trousers and yanking off his socks, he stepped in the tub and eased into its heat with a heavy sigh.

At the end of the day it hadn’t even mattered who got their job done. The girl died at the hospital, presumably from the shock to her already delicate system at being moved at all. First estimates were that she’d been eight years old, possibly ten, but he was later told by the doctors with some horror that she’d been in her teens, severely stunted with some form of palsy, among a half a dozen other conditions that could have been treated and even corrected in infancy to give her a better quality of life. Instead, her parents had hidden her away to suffer like a prisoner. At the spread of this information, the block and the hospital had soon been absolutely crawling with media coverage. It would certainly be all over the news tonight, if it wasn’t already. The most frightening part of it all was that it had occurred in a reasonably nice area, not far from home. Supposedly upstanding citizens who worked normal middle-class jobs and drove normal middle-class cars that could blend into society and pretend that they weren’t hiding an awful, filthy, inhumane secret…

Dom swept wet hands over his face, pressing his fingers firmly over his eyelids until the dull red-black tingled to a bright white, trying desperately to erase the things he’d seen today. He had never been so disgusted with humanity in his life. At this point he wanted to hand in his notice with no warning, buy a plane ticket and drop off the radar, throw responsibility out the sodding window. But he’d wait, because the bath was hot and steamy and relaxing, and he ached with fatigue. He hoped to at least soak off the crust of this day, along with his piss-poor mood before he struck out to a life of hermitage.

Several minutes had gone by before the door squeaked on its hinges. Dom cracked his eyes to see Billy holding a tumbler of scotch like a peace offering from the doorway. He cared neither way what Billy did with it and closed his eyes to the world again. He felt Billy nudge his fingers with the glass, setting it on the tiled shelf around the tub where Dom could reach it, and heard the shuffling of clothes being discarded.

Scotch did sound nice. Lovely honey brown oblivion in a tumbler. It was smooth and heavy gliding down and tingling in his gut, feeling almost warmer than the bath water.

“Good, hmm?” Billy’s voice was a soothing timbre that hovered in between a whisper and a hum, too soft and low to echo on the tiles. The sound of a match being struck to light the candles in the corner of the bath seemed almost the same volume. Something about the brief, sharp scent of sulfur had always been pleasant.

Dom hummed low in agreement and took another sip. Billy’s hands gingerly brushed at his temples. When Dom didn’t protest the attention, fuzzy legs slipped down into the water on either side of Dom’s shoulders as Billy perched on the wide shelf at the back of the tub and set to indulging him.

Dom kept his eyes closed as he felt his scalp being thoroughly wet down with the big fluffy sea sponge, then the telltale sounds of the shampoo bottle being flicked open and shut again. Billy massaged the lather in with the pads of his fingertips, the scent of sandalwood and vanilla from the candles thick in the humid air. Billy repeated with conditioner and then the sponge was dipped into the tub again and again until all the lather was rinsed clean away.

“Better now?” Billy asked.

Dom hummed, now very relaxed. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“Are you going to do the rest of me?” Dom asked, quirking his eyes up to finally meet Billy’s, upside down.

Billy laughed and pushed at the back of his head, “Scoot up then, daftie.” He eased carefully down into the water behind Dom with a hiss, “Christ, you’re liable to poach in water this hot.”

“I was overheated when I got in,” Dom muttered, settling back into Billy’s arms.

Billy said nothing for a few minutes, applying gentle fingertips to the knots in the muscles of Dom’s neck. “I saw you and Sean on the news,” he whispered tentatively into wet hair.

Dom didn’t answer, but sighed and shifted. If he’d had his way, the press ought to have been carted off with the poor girl’s parents. As it was, he’s spent too much of the day being told he couldn’t interview the people he needed to, see the evidence he needed to see, and do the job he frankly thought he was paid for, which was at the very fucking least to give the child some small form of comfort, which she’d clearly never had in her short life. It only disgusted him further to know that Billy had seen him on TV at his worst. He’d barely been introduced to Dom’s world before Dom had to leave him in it alone and go to work. On this rare occasion when Dom was presented with a camera in his face, Billy had seen him standing around and looking so fucking ineffectual, while Sean told the news crew everything possible was being done. The world’s biggest little white lie right there on the national news.

“Really bad day, hmm?”

Dom shut his eyes and grumbled through his teeth. “Worst day ever.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“No,” Dom muttered sullenly. “I want to forget everything about it.”

“Okay,” Billy whispered at the back of his neck, kissing sweetly at the droplets of water there as his arms hugged him close.

“We’ve got — in the trunk of Sean’s car — we’ve got this box full of teddy bears. Just cheap ones, you can buy in bulk. And you wouldn’t believe how much difference it can make, Bill. Just a little teddy bear. And I couldn’t… They didn’t even let me give her one, before…”

Billy only clutched him closer and let him talk and rage, and only shushing him when his voice reverberated off of the tiles.

Dom huffed again when he’d finished his tirade, and his tired eyes drooped closed. “I don’t mean to take it out on you.”

“I know you don’t,” Billy dismissed the apology by pushing him to sit up, soapy hands beginning to squeeze and press at the tension in Dom’s back and shoulders, leaning in briefly to kiss behind an ear. “Sometimes you need to just get it out.”

“It’s not fair,” Dom said into his knees. Nothing was fair, his yelling at Billy because Billy was there to bear the brunt of Dom’s frustrations, the day’s mess coming to an abrupt and pointless end, the whole damn business. He couldn’t even stomach the thought of having to go back in tomorrow, even if all he had left to do with it was a stack of paperwork.

“I wish I could just get away. Blink my eyes and fly away.”

Behind him, Billy sang quietly, a soft smile in his voice, “ _Come fly with me, come fly, let’s fly away_ … Where do you want to fly off to, Dommeh?”

Dom smiled a little, finally, for the first time since he woke that morning. “Anywhere I want?”

“Anywhere in the wide world,” Billy said, “So long as you take me with you.”

Dom let his thoughts drift back in time. “Mmm. As far away from here as possible.”

“I know that place.”

Dom chuckled, “I want to go back too, Bill, but I don’t think we can manage that quite yet.”

He chewed at his lip out of Billy’s sight. Dom made a decent five-figure salary for a social worker, but he’d never had to support another person as well as himself. Sean managed on it with his girls and Christine’s part time work. But Dom was surprised how easily money slipped away while he and Billy became acquainted with living together. It wasn’t really even excess lavishing either. Billy needed to be fed, so Dom fed him. Billy owned hardly any clothing, and while he certainly didn’t mind Billy wearing his clothes, a man ought to have enough shirts and jeans (and jumpers and coats and scarves and gloves and shoes and a nice up-to-date suit) to last a few weeks. Dom got him a mobile so they could keep in touch, as he’d long since retired the land line and didn’t want Billy to feel confined to the flat. There had been an amusing round of teasing last Sunday morning when Dom caught Billy squinting over the _Times_ before he was dragged into an optician’s to get a decent pair of reading glasses. And if he _was_ going to acknowledge frivolous purchases, Dom had developed a great dislike for Billy’s watch (the alarm on it in particular, as Billy still had a habit of setting it to go off at the most singularly inopportune times) and had bought him a new one. It was rich wide leather with a nakedly simple analog face that looked more expensive than it was, and deceptively had no alarm feature at all.

He’d told Billy more than once that he didn’t mind it while Billy searched for a job he enjoyed doing, and he truly didn’t. Dom quite liked doting on Billy, particularly liked watching Billy act humble and undeserving when his eyes betrayed how much he liked his gifts.

“Not yet.” Billy conceded. “There’s nothing wrong with thinking about taking time off, though. Just because you planned a trip for ten years doesn’t mean you have to wait so long the next time. We could plan something out, hmm? Something simple?”

Dom sighed and pillowed his head back on Billy’s shoulder. “It’s so hard to get time off work. I just don’t know.”

“It’s hard for you to _ask_ for time off work. I know your type,” Billy murmured. “Doesn’t have to be right away.”

It hadn’t really occurred to him that Billy, too, may be feeling stifled. Billy had rearranged his own life to come to this city just to be with him and did not yet have work to occupy the eight or more hours every weekday and occasional hours of the weekend when Dom was away. Dom had only thought of himself. _Selfish, as always._

“I…” he started, then started over, “Maybe we could go somewhere. A… a weekend away, or something. If we plan it right.”

Billy laughed, low and rumbly against Dom’s neck, “Just so we can muck your plan all up? You need a happy medium. Too much thinking gets you in ever so much trouble. Don’t you remember?”

Dom remembered with a smile. The trouble he happened to be leaning back against was among his wayward thinking follies, though this one he’d yet to begrudge. He needed a damned break from his own brain right this second. “I don’t want to think anymore tonight, Bills.”

“A fine plan. Thai take-away and a thoughtless film with a happy ending?”

“Mmm. That requires eyeballs. The film part. What was it you were reading earlier?”

Billy grinned into his shoulder, “You’ll laugh at me.”

“I might.”

“First I was reading one of your psychology books, but… Jung was a bit unnerving.”

Dom giggled, “Why’s that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. He’s just…” Billy struggled, “Knows too much, maybe. Makes me nervous.”

Dom turned enough to nuzzle his nose to Billy’s cheek. “’S’ that so?”

“Mmm. So I switched to Shakespeare.”

Dom laughed heartily, “Christ Bills, Psych and Shakespeare go hand in hand. The more screwed up a character was, the more he loved them.”

“But at least it’s entertaining, right? There’s sword fighting and fancy words and minstrels and things.”

Dom lifted a little to look at Billy from the corner of his eye. “You thinking of treading the boards?” he said fiendishly. This was New York after all, and Billy had discovered Dom’s penchant for certain Shakespeare plays, namely in the form of the cabinet below the television that held possibly every version of _Hamlet_ ever done.

“Christ, no. Singing’s enough of the stage for me,” Billy chuckled. “I was just looking for something to read and found it in your shelves. Been awhile, that’s all.”

“Which one were you reading?”

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Dom put his head back on Billy’s shoulder and laughed. “ _What fools these mortals be._ Right then, you. Thai and beer, and you can read it to me, how about that? The perils of fairy love and donkeys.”

“I thought you were the storyteller,” Billy murmured.

“I’m out of stories today.” Dom slipped down further, thinking of the way he’d stormed in and ripped his good coat out of a really unnecessary build-up of anger. He let out a bubble of laughter at what a picture he must have made barging into Billy’s quiet evening with the bard. “You probably think I’m cracked, coming home the way I did.”

Billy’s fingers stroked along Dom’s wet collarbones. “No. You’ve no structural damage as far as I can see. Solid, quality build. The asymmetrical design is a unique touch I’ve taken quite a liking to.”

Dom’s mood rose further at Billy’s gentle joking, and he looked stern over his shoulder. “I mean upstairs, arsehole. The electronics room isn’t well maintained. Full of fried circuits and faulty wiring. My IT guy up and left without even two weeks notice.”

Billy grinned. “Sounds like you need a new IT guy, then.”

“Yeah.”

“Someone with references. Experience.”

Dom wriggled a bit under Billy’s fingers, which were very slowly, tickling down his chest and ribs, drips of water leading their way. “Yeah.”

“Someone fun to work with, but meticulous. Up for a challenge, right? And really... good... with his hands.”

Dom gasped as one hand deftly slid beneath the water level. “Mmmfuck Bill.”

Billy tilted his head to the side inquisitively. “I’m in the market for a new position myself.”

“When...” Dom swallowed as the hand made a very interesting tickle just shy of its goal, “When can you start?”

“I’m hired, then?”

“I’ll give you a starting bonus if you’re available in the next ten seconds.”

Without another word Billy’s mouth was at work on Dom’s neck and shoulder. His hands swept back up, loosening the cord of the round dragon pendant, slipping it off and out of sight.

Dom took a deep, slow breath of the steamy air, feeling the strange sensation of more weight being lifted from him than one small stone ought to carry. It was Billy who had named the _Manaia_ pendant a symbol of work in the first place, and it was Billy who removed it from Dom’s neck, taking it away in a silent reminder that sometimes it was okay to come home and leave responsibility at the office. The smaller piece of twisted jade that Billy had given him remained at his collarbones, where Billy fingers gave it a gentle tug as reminder of something else, whispered against warm wet skin.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dom has a case that makes him think.

_Friday, September 29th_

Dom read the prelim report one more time as the taxi pulled up to let him out at the visitors doors at St. Johns. Everything about it was relatively straightforward: a hospital consult, insulted parents demanding a second opinion at being suspected of abuse, threatening to sue, et cetera. Dom wasn’t nervous, even though it was the first solo case he’d been given in over six months.

It was the only boy’s surname that tripped him up.

“What can I do for ya, Dom?”

“Hey, Phyllis,” he greeted the desk clerk. “I’m looking for a Devon Boyd for a consult?”

Phyllis put the name into the computer, asking, “Sean out today?”

“No, this one’s just me.”

“Devon Boyd… Looks like they’ve moved him up to Peds, Room 3 with Dr. Steinburg. He's scheduled for surgery tomorrow morning. Lynn consulted,” she read from the display.

Dom rolled his eyes, “Figures. Thanks.”

Down a short corridor, Dom held the elevator door for a couple who looked like first timers, the very pregnant young woman pink-faced and tight lipped, and the man anxious, giddily telling Dom they’d been sent home twice already during the night as false alarms.

Devon Boyd was an eleven year old with a broken collarbone, a dislocated shoulder, and a very short tempered father, as Dom discovered when the large man marched straight up to him as he was getting the rundown from Steinburg and the onsite peds counselor Rebecca Lynn, and demanded that he set the “stupid doctors” to rights.

He could see why the question had been raised in the first place. The boy had a history of fractures and bruises, many of them falling into the realm of defensive wounds.

“Dev plays hockey, Mr. Monaghan,” Devon’s mother told him, in a closed waiting room. She wore an expression of thorough confusion through all of the questions and the curt, often biting answers her husband made. “And in the spring he’ll probably want to be in soccer and baseball again. Kids get injured; we know that. Ask him. He’ll tell you the same thing we told the doctors.”

“I understand, Mrs. Boyd. And let me just remind you that I’m here to help. You’ve not been accused of anyth–“

“That’s bullshit. _They_ accused us of beating our kid!” Mr. Boyd interrupted fiercely.

“You have not been formally accused of anything,” Dom amended. “Not yet. Now, I’d like to talk to Devon.”

“Fine. Let’s go talk to him again,” spat Mr. Boyd. “This whole fucking thing is going around in circles.”

“I’d like to talk to him alone, if you don’t mind,” Dom said, firmly.

“Why?”

“Bruce, let him,” Mrs. Boyd put a hand on her husband’s arm. Dom waited calmly for the burly man to concede. Mr. Boyd finally threw a hand up in contempt, refusing to look at any of them. Dom nodded to Mrs. Boyd and excused himself to the boy’s neighboring room.

Devon was light haired, like his father. He sat on a bed, propped on pillows with his right arm and shoulder in an immobilizer, the free hand picking at the sheets. A television was on in the corner, but the sound was low, as another boy slept in the neighboring bed.

“Hey, Devon. I’m Dom Monaghan,” he began, pulling the curtain between the two beds.

“Okay,” the boy answered indifferently.

“Hell of a break, that.” Dom switched tactics, pulling up a chair and turning it to straddle by the bedside, lifting his chin at the boy’s arm, “Surgery and everything. You’ll be laid up for awhile, eh?”

Devon didn’t answer, but turned his head a little to look Dom over. There was an old, yellowed bruise on the side of his cheekbone.

“So, hockey. That’s a hard sport. You’ve got to learn to skate and everything. I played a little footie when I was your age. Soccer, you Yanks call it.”

Devon tugged at a loose thread on the sheet, looking blankly at the TV. “I play soccer in spring.”

“That’s what your mum told me.”

“Are you gonna get to the point, soon?” Devon asked, looking at Dom fully.

Dom grinned. “You’re sharp, aren’t you? You know why I’m here, then?”

“Probably to ask if my dad beats me, I bet, just like the others,” the boy answered, looking away, then back directly in Dom’s eyes. “He doesn’t, by the way.”

“Want to tell me how you broke that arm, then?”

“Hockey practice,” Devon answered flatly.

“And what about the bruise on your cheek?” Dom asked right back. “And that one, on your wrist?”

The boy withdrew his arm, uninjured but for a bruise around the wrist, tucking it under the padding of the immobilizer on the other arm. “Same thing. Sports.” He turned back to look at Dom. “If you played soccer, you’d know that you get hurt sometimes.”

“I did, actually.” Dom told him. “Twisted my knee once, came really close to tearing a ligament. My mum pulled me off the team after. She thought I was too slight to play. I didn’t speak to her for a week, but she never did let me go back.”

Devon said nothing, pursing his mouth and watching the nature program.

“Do you like playing sports, Devon? Which is you’re favourite, that you play?” Dom prodded.

Devon only shrugged.

They were getting down to it now. “Do you like other things, besides sports? What’s your favourite class in school?”

“Art,” the boy answered, looking down. “I… I like to paint. Last year, I painted this… thing. Like a sunset, but with three suns instead of one, and it looked hot and cold at the same time somehow. It…. It won a school contest.” He pinked a little, and then frowned. “Won’t be able to now, though,” he said scornfully, looking at the immobilizer.

“Well, maybe not for awhile, but it’ll come back. I know how you feel, though. I like to paint too.”

Devon looked back, a new light in his face, “Really?”

Dom nodded, smiling softly. “My mum got me into private classes, after the whole football fiasco. I liked it though. I learned a lot.”

“You can take private classes?”

“Sure. Sometimes even art colleges have after-school classes for kids your age. And this is New York, mate. Some of the best schools in the world to choose from.”

Devon picked at the sheet again. “I wouldn’t have time, anyway. I have hockey practice, and baseball will start soon…” he muttered bitterly.

“Devon,” Dom interrupted softly, “If you don’t like sports, you don’t have to play them.”

“Dad wants…”

“I don’t care what your dad wants,” Dom told him. “It’s about what you want. It’s about what you like. And if you get ragged on by your mates, I don’t blame you.”

Devon looked back at Dom nervously.

“That’s what happened, isn’t it? Your arm, at hockey practice? And your face, and wrist?”

The boy glanced down and nodded. “I hate hockey most,” he muttered. “They’re all bigger than me. Call me a wimp.”

Dom took breath and leaned forward. “Why didn’t you tell your parents about it? Even just your mum?”

“She’d just tell Dad. And I already know what he’d say. ‘You gotta be tough, Dev, you gotta be the best! Suck it up, Dev!’” The boy mocked his father’s voice.

Dom nodded. For his part, he knew exactly how that felt. “Sometimes, Devon, parents expect their kids to be just like they are. But if you don’t tell them what _you_ want, they’re never going to realize that you might want do something else, like those art classes. I know it’s hard, trust me. But what’s the worst that can happen?”

Devon blinked.

“Your dad will yell, and make a fuss and maybe even call you names, eh? You know what? Your dad’s no different than the hockey kids. But he’s right about one thing, you have to suck it up and be yourself. Names are just names, they don’t make you into anything that you’re not. Right?”

There was a knock at the door and Rebecca, the young hospital counselor came in, the boy’s parents looking anxiously through the window. Dom stood, looking down at the kid, “You want me to tell them all this?”

“No.” Devon glanced between his father and mother through the window, “I’ll tell them.”

Dom grinned, tipping the kid a wink and sticking out his left hand, “Get better, all right? Don’t get used to the food around here. Ask for extra pudding.”

Devon smiled and shook Dom’s hand with his free arm.

Dom left the room and summarized the situation to Rebecca. “I don’t know how you do that, Monaghan,” she said admiringly. “That kid didn’t tell me any of that and I went by the damned book.”

“There’s your problem, then,” he told her. “The book’s full of shite. Talk to them like a human and you might get somewhere.”

“Well?” Mr. Boyd drew up behind them as Rebecca went back to the room. “Who do I have to sue to get you people to make a goddamned decision? What did my son tell you?”

Dom turned, looking up at the man. He was a good six inches taller than Dom, and stoutly built, a frame that was rather intimately familiar to him, really. The sort with a great deal of hidden strength packed behind it.

“Devon’s a good kid.”

Mr. Boyd looked confused. “Don’t you think I know that? Why the fuck would you people think I beat my own son?”

Dom casually put his hands in his pockets and looked the man in the eye. “I don’t think you beat your son. There are a lot of forms of abuse, Mr. Boyd. Bullying, for example.”

The man blinked. “Is that what this is about? I told Dev to fight back. It’s hockey, he’s supposed to fight back.”

“It’s children’s hockey, Mr. Boyd, and I believe there are rules about fighting in junior leagues. It’s not the kids’ bullying I was referring to.” Dom told him pointedly. “It’s up to Devon to talk to you about what’s on his mind. That’s his choice. But I can tell you this. That injury, among others, didn’t happen on the rink, which is evidence enough of a problem somewhere. And frankly, an injury serious enough to call for surgery is a little harsh for an eleven year old. He’s not going pro, after all.”

“What if he wants to?” Mr. Boyd fired back, indignantly.

“Have you asked him that?” Dom arched a brow as the man didn’t answer. “Devon wants to please you, Mr. Boyd. But he also wants to make his own decisions. I suggest you listen. Have a good day, eh? Say cheers to the missus for me.”

With that, Dom turned away to leave. He wanted to call Billy, see what he was doing, see if he could get his paperwork done early so they could go out to dinner tonight.

“What, are you suggesting I buy him a paint set, or some pansy crap like that? Stick him in piano lessons?” Mr. Boyd called back.

Dom stopped, turned and strode back, glaring up at the man. “Let me tell you something, mate. Your boy has passion for something. Maybe it’s not the same as yours, but it’s there, and it’s a little bit of brilliance just waiting to be seen, yeah? You’d do well to respect that before you squash it out of him.”

He didn’t stop grinding his teeth until he was outside, and crossed the street to the deli to buy himself a coffee. Leaning on the wall outside, he took out his phone and hit the number one on the speed dial.

“Erm. This is Billy’s Boyd’s message… thing. So leave one. Bye!”

Dom chuckled and went to close the phone, but then waited for the beep. “Hey Bill. I don’t have anything to say, except that I just got myself all worked up and thought of you. Anyway. So. I was thinking of going to Pirelli’s for dinner. Think about it, eh? I…” Dom sighed, feeling like a twat for calling. “I wish I was home with you. Love you, Bills.”

Flagging down a taxi, he settled in the back seat and sipped the coffee. The case had been relatively easy, and he could go back to the office and tell Cate it was closed. But it didn’t help the fact that it was all a little closer to home than he typically liked.

He wondered if Billy dealt with the same. Billy never spoke ill of his parents, but Dom knew he’d been at odds with them as a child. But that had not been out of choice, it had been poverty. Dom saw similar cases everyday, parents who barely scraped a living, kids who seemed destined to follow the vicious cycle. Every now and again, there was that one who wanted out of that deep dark hole. It was an uphill, raging battle to climb out of it, fighting against those who tried to stop them, everyone who told them they couldn’t. Billy had made it out.

But had he, really? Dom shifted uncomfortably at the thought. At the moment, Billy had very little to his name. He was starting over once again, because Dom asked him to leave it all and come to him. Would Billy’s parents be proud, if they were alive? Would his sister approve, wherever she was? Dom wondered these things because he personally thought Billy was crazy for doing something so rash. Dom himself had walked away, and had six long lonely months haunting him to prove it.

At the very same time, he could no longer bring himself to imagine being without Billy anymore. Just last week after that horrible case, Dom would have come home to nothing but a cold, empty flat and despite any vows to fuck it all and disappear, he'd have been right back at work the next day with a dismal attitude instead of an upbeat one. What had Billy done on those bad nights when he was homeless, when there had been no one to turn to? Nothing held him down to where he was.

Back at the office, Dom wrote up his report and entered it into the computer, putting the paper copy in Cate’s box to sign off on, but he continued to look over it, for lack of anything else to do.

It wasn’t as though it was an uncommon name. There were Boyd’s all over the world, weren’t there?

Dom glanced around the small office. Sean sat at his desk, typing intently. Audrey and Matilda were out. Cate’s door was closed. Pulling up the internet on the computer, he typed “Boyd” into the Google search.

The search engine came back immediately with over thirty-three million results. He narrowed it down to “Margaret Boyd”. One hundred twenty-three million results.

Dom sat back, staring at the screen. Now he was beginning to see what Billy had to deal with. Out of six billion people in the world, how do you find just one?

       
_“You named it.”_

 _“You would have too,” Billy scrubbed at the back of his neck again (the pink had gone all the way back there), roughing up his hair. “Anyway, it I guess it got sold with the rest. I’ve not see it since.”_

 _Dom eventually stopped giggling, “So that’s what this is. Going into all the music stores we pass.”_

 _Bill shrugged with a guilty smile._

 _“Jesus Bill, you really think you’ll find it? That’s a needle in a haystack if ever there was one.”_

 _“I don’t mind the looking. I’ve found a lot of things along the way.”_

“What’re you grinning about?” Sean asked, suddenly appearing beside Dom’s desk.

Dom jumped and reached for the mouse, but it was too late, Sean was already looking at the screen.

Sean grinned down at him, “A little extracurricular study, Dom? Don’t you get enough of that at home?”

“Piss off, it was case-related. Nothing to do with what I _get_ at home,” Dom grumbled, closing the browser window. “Which is plenty, by the way.”

“Good thing too,” Sean said, ambling to his own desk. “You were a pain in the ass when you weren’t getting any. Should have seen yourself just now, grinning like some freaky monkey.”

Dom shook his head and pulled his briefcase from under the desk. The memory of Billy’s guitar story had reminded him only that things _can_ be found, if you just stop and look.

“You two are coming over for dinner tomorrow night,” Sean told him authoritatively as he got ready to leave.

“Oh, are we?”

“Yes,” Sean sniffed, shuffling through his unfinished paperwork.

“So, whatever plans we had are no longer important,” Dom teased, examining the lining of his coat before pulling it on. He’d intended to take it to a tailor, but Billy had dug out the small sewing kit buried in the laundry closet and done it himself, with stitches that were small and more or less evenly spaced. A grin tugged at his mouth again at the thought of Billy concentrating very carefully with the needle and thread, with those neat fingers and silver rimmed reading glasses perched on his nose. They didn’t have any plans, as it happened. Matter of fact, with Billy around the idea of planning things well in advance seemed to have buggered off.

“Nope,” Sean smiled up at him. “Allie told me to tell you. It wasn’t a request.”

Dom laughed, and pulled the door open, “Such a well brought up little princess, that one. Six?”

Sean nodded and waved him out.

Up the stairs to his apartment, Dom could hear music even before he reached the landing. Not the radio or the CD player, but the pure, strong notes of a guitar, and with them, a sweet, soft voice. The sound made his heart feel like it was floating inches higher than normal. He paused to press an ear to the door.

 _What if you  
Could hear this song  
What if I  
Felt like I belong  
I might not be leaving so soon  
Began the night believing  
I loved you in the moonlight  
So, for tonight  
I'll stay here with you_

Dom blinked, feeling his heart drop, before he reminded himself that was silly. Billy was a shite poet and didn’t write his own, so it was just a song. A quiet, sad song, sung with a strangely accepted sort of remorse. A song unlike what he’d been accustomed to from Billy.

 _Yes, for tonight  
I'll lay here with you  
But when the sun hits your eyes  
Through your window  
There'll be nothing you can do_

Dom twisted the doorknob, and gasped quietly at the sight in his living room. Billy lay flat on the sofa, his head towards the door and eyes closed as he sang, apparently not hearing the door open as he strummed at the guitar propped against one raised knee.

 _I could've treated you better  
Better than this  
Well, I'm gone, this song's your letter  
Can't stay in one place  
So, for tonight  
I'll stay here with you  
Yes, for tonight  
I'll lay here with you  
But when the sun hits your eyes  
Through your window  
There'll be nothing you can do_

The song ended and Dom pulled the door shut behind him with a soft snick. Billy opened his eyes and looked at him upside down with a smile. “You’re early.”

Dom dropped his briefcase by the desk, shrugging off his coat. “You’re singing.”

Billy’s grin widened further, hauling himself up and propping the guitar aside, “Aye. I’ve been known to do that, sometimes.”

“But… you usually,” he was cut off by Billy coming up to kiss him, “You usually have an audience.”

“Mmm. I had sneaky one I didn’t know about, just now.” Billy kissed him again, deeper this time.

Dom thought of his day, of wanting to be right where he was now while outside that deli, thought of looking things up that he had no real business getting himself into. The song only sparked his worry, though Billy seemed to have broken from the melancholy as soon as Dom appeared. He rested his forehead against Billy’s and gave an exhale. Maybe it was just a sad song.

“I talked to Elijah today,” Billy murmured.

“Yeah?” Dom asked, hesitating a bit. “How is he?”

Billy gave a weighted breath before answering, “Lonely.”

Elijah was still in New Zealand, a world away. Dom had taken to attaching _still_ to _in New Zealand_ whenever he thought of it. When the little chameleon had crawled into his affections, he didn’t know. He'd never asked if Billy found comfort with Elijah during the six months they were apart. In fact, he’d accepted the idea of it so thoroughly, wondering now didn’t spark anything but the same sort of sadness the song left behind it.

Abruptly, Billy wrapped his arms tight around Dom’s ribs and squeezed hard enough to push the air from his lungs for a second. “Love you, Dommeh,” he whispered, and Dom’s heart lifted once more, leaving his worries behind.

He kissed Billy again, taking charge of this one. “I called you this afternoon. Left a message.”

“Yeah? I was out,” Billy answered, turning back to the sofa and picking up a bit of packaging from the end table. “I needed to get new strings.”

Dom chuckled, looking at the desk, where Billy’s phone sat on its charger. “The point of a mobile is that it goes with you, Bills.” He sat on the couch, taking Billy’s Epiphone in hand and picking at the new strings, bright and untarnished.

Billy’s hand migrated to his nape just for a moment. Dom grinned at him, strumming random notes. Billy cherished his guitar, perhaps more than than the vintage one set on the display in the corner. Dom knew it made him unconsciously nervous when it was in someone else’s hands. “I thought we might go to Pirelli’s, if you want.”

Billy had turned casually to the corner of the living room, picking up the older, classical guitar from its stand very carefully. Dom stopped his strumming to watch. He’d missed the first time Billy had touched Holly, held it they way he did now. He drew his fingers over the worn edges, tripping very lightly over the frets, circling the copper inlay and pressing where the mother of pearl was cracked and loose. It was the first time Dom had regretted anything about living with Billy, missing that first moment because he had work and Billy was here on his own.

Setting the instrument in his lap aside, Dom knelt on the floor by the fireplace with Billy. Tentatively reaching out, he stroked a knuckle down Billy’s cheek, leaning closer when Billy’s hand came off the guitar and wound with his own, turning to press the knuckle to his lips, then again, lingering over the skin with his tongue.

“Or we could stay home,” Dom murmured, eyelids falling to half-mast.

Billy let go and turned to put the old guitar back on its stand, but turned back with a sudden fierceness in his eyes as he pushed Dom down on the rug. “We could make a reservation. A late one.”

Dom raised his eyebrows as Billy crawled up over him, the light of the fire gleaming in his eyes. “That too.”

But instead of ravaging him in front of the fire, Billy only sighed and tuckled himself into Dom's side. Dom laced his fingers with Billy's on his chest, hoping it gave whatever support was needed.

The firelight flickered in the dull sheen of rosewood. The old guitar was still damaged and useless, and Billy had said no more of repairing it since a month ago. It was only in these quiet moments that Dom feared what he might be thinking.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of dancing, dinner, little hurts and bigger ones.

_Saturday, September 30th_

Alexandra was really quite taken with Billy. This wasn’t the least bit surprising to Dom, especially since the man was currently singing _My Girl_ while dancing with the beaming eight year old in the middle of Sean’s living room, and Dom was fairly smitten himself. This was only their second dinner together with the Astin family since Billy had arrived, and Sean and Christine were being remarkably lenient on the No Feet on the Sofa Rule so that Allie was the right height for her dancing partner. Dom suspected they liked Billy as well.

Dom sat with a beer at hand and Lizzie currently occupied with an Etch-A-Sketch on the carpet at his feet, watching the scene with a wave of nostalgic familiarity. Allie was possibly not the only person beaming into the room. She twirled on Billy’s arm, her yellow gingham dress spinning in that way that Dom supposed made little girls feel pretty at her age. But then, if it were Billy teaching him to dance, he’d feel pretty as well.

In fact, he was feeling so high on life at the moment that he didn’t notice Lizzie’s loss of interest in the toy and her attempts to imitate her big sister, until the sharp thunk on the coffee table indicated it was too late.

Lizzie went down looking shocked, then her face crumpled, and then the wail came full force. Dom was on his knees examining the two year old immediately, asking where it hurt, while Billy lifted Allie down from the sofa and looked on rather guiltily. Lizzie had bumped a chubby arm on the side of the table and there was a little angry welt, but she was more startled than hurt. Gathering her up, Dom reassured Sean and Chris with a smile that he could handle the situation.

“Corner protectors,” Sean turned to Chris from the kitchen doorway, wiping off a serving platter. “I‘m pretty sure I mentioned before that we’re going to need corner protectors for all the furniture with sharp edges. I’ll add that to the list.”

“Sean, we got through two babies just fine without wrapping house and home in bubble wrap,“ Christine said as she returned to preparing dinner, thoroughly unfazed. A bump was a bump, and she knew well enough by now not to make a fuss over it.

“I’m not a baby!” Allie announced loudly.

“See, I wasn’t sure if you’d just noticed our youngest managed to hurt herself in her own supposedly safe home.“

“That coffee table was my grandmother’s and I’m not about to put anything remotely sticky on a vintage finish. I’m sure we can manage a third baby just the same as the first two.”

“Banaid? Neena banaid.” Lizzie sniveled through her tears to Dominic, since wailing had failed to catch the appropriate fawning attention she’d desired from her parents.

“Who’s Neena Banaid?” Billy asked, looking perplexed at the pouting toddler. He followed Dom down the hall to the bathroom, where it was far quieter than the bustle of the old married couple and Allie demanding, “Daddy, watch me!” while she danced.

Dom sat his charge on the sink top and rummaged in the medicine cabinet. Finding what he was looking for, he turned back, well aware that Billy was still watching from the doorway. “We have the Wiggles, Dora the Explorer, Big Bird, and a kiss from Billy and me to make the hurt go away, love,” he chirped to Lizzie, holding up the colorful bandages. She didn’t _need_ a band-aid, of course, but Dom knew how far these things went to making the tears stop. “What’ll it be?”

Lizzie wiped her face and pointed, “Dora-dasplora.”

“Dora the Explorer, it is.” Dom parroted, pulling the paper from the bright blue plaster and pressing it gently over the red spot under her little elbow. “And who kisses it all better, Uncle Billy or Uncle Dommie?”

Lizzie eyed Billy doubtfully from behind a grubby fist and pointed wordlessly at Dom. Dom was Uncle Dommie and always had been for as long as she’d ever known, but this Uncle Billy business was far too new for any self-respecting toddler to tolerate just yet. Dom bent to kiss the bandage, and then kissed both grubby cheeks before wetting a facecloth to clean her hands and face up for dinner, all the while pulling faces until she blurted a watery giggle through her upset. Setting her down in the hallway and sending her to show off her bravery to her parents, he turned and mock-pouted at Billy.

Billy, however, looked pleasingly bewildered. “Uncle Billy?” he asked.

“You could be Auntie Billy, if you prefer.”

“Oi, watch it, lad,” Billy countered scathingly, “I found an eyeliner pencil in the back of your bathroom drawer the other day. If anyone’s Auntie, it’s you.”

Dom sauntered close in the dim of the hall and purred in Billy’s ear, “Say that when I wear it for you. With nothing else.”

“Supper’s ready!” called Sean’s voice from the kitchen.

Dom backed off on his way to the table, grinning fiendishly at the intrigued glint that comment ignited in Billy’s eyes and left him a moment to ponder that possibility before dinner.

  
“So Bill,” Sean began, shooting a sideways glance at Dom. “What do you know about your ancestry? Like, if I dropped your name into the internet, what would I find?”

Dom choked on a green bean, but Billy seemed to take the question in stride, straightening up in his chair. “I expect you’d find a few things. The Boyd Clan dates well back to the Dark Ages.”

“What’s the Dark Ages?” Allie asked. “Was it dark?”

“Well, it was a long time before light bulbs, lass,” Billy answered, and this time Sean choked on a green bean, and Chris pounded him on the back, laughing herself. “It wasn’t really dark, but they lit everything with candles back then, so it was at least a bit dim.”

“Your grandparents lived back then?” Allie asked.

Billy smiled down at her. “My great, great, great grandparents, many times over.” He looked across the table at Dom. “Used to be the Scots and the English didn’t like each other very much.“

“Understatement of the century,” Dom chuckled.

“Why not?” Allie persisted, looking between the two of them. “You like each other now.”

Billy looked at Dom, his eyes going wicked. This particular story went differently, depending on which side got to do the telling. Dom offered Billy the audience with a sweep of his wineglass, sitting back to listen.

“Back then, lass, before it was even called England or Scotland, there were the Picts, and they called the whole place Alba. Warriors, they were, lass. They were fierce and proud, and they believed in a world we humans couldn’t see, a world full of gods and spirits and magic, and fairies too.”

Dom was grinning over the table, watching Billy. His speech had gone just that much thicker, sometimes dropping low to drill its point to the mark, sometimes rising proudly, his chin high and defiant. Allie was absolutely enchanted.

“Then the Romans came. And they were intent on taking over the known world then, had big ideas of grandeur.” Billy paused, glancing around and dropping his voice to conspiratorial tones for his charge, “I’ll tell you a secret, though. They were afraid of us.”

“I bet they were!” Allie said enthusiastically.

“Aye, they were.” Billy said with equal pride. “We wouldn’t bow to them telling us what to do, you see. We didn’t want to believe what they told us we should believe. We fought back. Told them we’d been getting on just fine without them for a thousand years before that! Only they didn’t like being told, and they didn’t like that we fought back, and so do you know what they did?”

“What?”

“They built a great bloody wall all the way across the country! And oh, they were proud of themselves, thinking they were clever. They carried on with their business for a hundred years afterwards, changing the names of cities and taxing the poor, pretending that we weren’t even there. So every now and again, we had to stir up trouble, just to remind them that we weren’t going anywhere. It was our land.”

Billy paused to slather butter on his roll. “After that, more people came from the continent. The Saxons, the Angles, the Franks, the Vikings. Some of them made peace with the Romans, and some with us, and soon we were all fighting each other and made a great ruddy mess of things. It kept on like that for hundreds of years, lass. Until we came to call the north bit Scotland, and the south bit England and the Romans lost their empire, back to all the people they stole it from. Until we started to speak the same languages, mostly. But it didn’t end there. Oh, no.”

“What happened then?” Allie asked.

“By then we were a proper bunch. There were nobles with castles and serfs and taxes, armies of men at their beck and call. But still fierce, don’t forget. That’s where my great, great, great, grandfather comes in.” Billy grinned across the table at Dom, “The English, you see, they still had Roman notions in their heads, and they’d come to think their own bit of the island wasn’t big enough. No, they figured they take over the whole island and the bloody world besides.”

“Careful now,” Dom warned with a Cheshire grin, “We're all speaking English for a reason here.”

Billy ignored that. “You see lass, even though they were pretending to be friends with us, they figured they’d give our nobles lordships and lands and let us into their aristocracy, they were deceitful lying buggers. And the nobles counted their coins and nodded their heads like puppets, until one bloke stood up and said, ‘Wait a minute, how is it you believe you’re generously giving us lands that belong to us already?’”

Allie blinked, perplexed.

“’Scotland is already ours’, this man said. ‘Has been for centuries. We never conceded to their authority, did we? That old wall didn’t keep us fenced. We didn’t need their King telling us what to do.’”

Allie brightened. “Just like the Romans!”

“Exactly,” Billy nodded. “And so we rallied together with that man, Wallace, against the bloody tyrannical English. And my great, great, great grandfather, Sir Robert Boyd was with him, on a great white horse, helping to lead his army. And do you know what else? We won.”

“Wow!” Allie beamed.

“And that, Sean,” Billy raised his head defiantly at his host, “Is what you’d find on your Google, or whatever it is. And why a great many Scots name their first-born sons William. And sometimes Robert.”

Sean laughed heartily, raising his glass, “I give. To Sir Robert, who didn’t get his fifteen minutes in the movie.”

Billy raised his glass with everyone else. “May we never forgive Gibson for that bit of grave misinformation. Although, he looks fantastic done up in woad and a kilt. Not to mention without.”

“Hear, hear!” said Christine raising her orange juice, which earned her a glare from Sean.

“So Billy, is your family still in Scotland?”

It wasn’t as though Chris knew any better than to ask. Dom looked wide-eyed across the table.

Billy balked for only a fraction of a second. Dom saw it only because it was hidden in the pretense that he needed to chew and swallow his mouthful before he answered. “Oh, my parents passed on years ago. It’s… erm. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been back, to tell the truth.”

Dom smiled softly at him, relieved that Billy could not only be so cool at an inadvertently touchy question, but handled it smoothly enough so as not to embarrass her for having asked. It would probably be best to change the subject before other questions came up.

“Billy followed the boat, Chris. Started in England and went round to the Mediterranean, and… How did it get to New Zealand, Bill?” Dom pressed.

“They’ve three yachts,” Billy explained, nodding to Dom. “They try to spread them out, you know, to have the most itineraries available at the right times of the year. After the Mediterranean, they go down the Suez Canal then round the Arabian Peninsula, the Indies, Indonesia and south. There are transatlantic voyages too, but thankfully I missed those. They say a full week at sea and all the passengers are half-mad. Feel like a bunch of pirates that are low on rations and all eying each other up.”

“Have you met any real pirates?” Allie asked.

Billy smiled down at her, arching a brow, “How do you know you’re not speaking to one?”

“Pirates steal things. Like treasure and stuff.”

“That they do,” Billy nodded. “They also guard their treasure jealously, don’t they? They keep it in a place only they can find.”

“And they make treasure maps!” Allie added.

“Aye, but why, I ask you?” Billy asked, leaning close to her. “If you don’t want your treasure found by anyone but you, you best not make a map at all, and keep it all in your head.”

Billy tucked into his potatoes for a minute, pretending not to notice both Allie and Lizzie staring in fascination. When he did notice, rounding his brows innocently, Allie narrowed her eyes at him.

“I don’t think you have any treasure at all,” she announced.

“One man’s treasure is another’s trash, love,” Billy answered cryptically, his eyes flicking to Dom.

“Ooh, but I can keep a secret! I really can!”

Dom grinned at his plate. “Don’t underestimate him, Allie. He’s stolen a few things in his time.”

Billy bent to Allie’s ear and murmured, “If you're very good and don’t upset your mum and your little brother or sister inside her, I’ll show you my treasure, someday. Maybe you can help me fix it, hmm?”

“It’s broken?” Allie asked, her little brows knitting in concern.

“Aye. It’s been broken and lost for a terribly long time.” Billy picked apart the remains of his roll. “I don’t know if it can be fixed, to be honest.”

“Daddy says things can be fixed, but not people.”

Billy sat a bit straighter, twirling his wineglass before downing the dredges. “Sean, you’ll need to keep an eye on this one, she’s sharp as a tack.”

“You have no idea, Bill,” Sean chuckled behind his fork.

  
After dinner, Chris took Lizzie to get ready for bed, and Sean tended to Allie. “I want Billy to read it this time,” came her sudden request, dress traded for pajamas and toting a book. It was usually Sean’s job to read a chapter with Allie at night, unless of course Dom was visiting, but this night clearly both had been usurped. Dom grinned, but Billy blushed to the ends of his hair as he bashfully took the _Redwall_ book from Allie and followed her to her room. Dom shot a look of glee at Sean and followed behind, settling in the hallway just outside her room to listen. After all, he’d grown very accustomed to the sound of Billy’s voice in a short time.

That voice lifted and swelled through the rousing tale of the forest animals’ abbey, and did a good job on the many accents of all the different creatures in the book. Allie even paused him in the middle to comment on the pronunciation of a name, “Daddy says Bay-sil, but you and Uncle Dommie say Baa-sil. I’m going to tell Daddy he says it wrong.”

When the harrowing chapter was finished and Billy emerged, Dom pecked him on the cheek in the hall, and watched him through the last cup of coffee and small talk with Sean and Chris. Billy was sweet and attentive when spoken to, but his eyes wandered the room and he’d grown unusually quiet.

“We ought to go,” Dom said, getting to his feet and feigning a yawn.

“Are you sure?” Sean asked, glancing at his watch, “It’s early yet.”

Billy was standing already, thanking Christine for a lovely dinner. Every excuse Dom could think of was crass, so he settled for simply giving Sean a look of apology. Billy was tired and twitchy and out of his element, and Dom could sense it on a nearly subliminal level. Sean smartly let it be.

  
It was only after they got home that Dom truly put it together. Billy had gone into the bedroom with his phone, calling Bean in Australia. The phone conversation was genial and typical catching up with a mate from what Dom could hear while emptying the dishwasher and readying the kettle and coffee machine for the morning, but when Bill did not emerge from the bedroom after ringing off, Dom’s curiosity got the better of him and he peeked around the door frame. Billy’s back was mostly to the door, only part of his profile visible to Dom as he stood gazing out of the window at the cold night. He looked worn around the edges and heavy with the thoughts in his head.

Guilt returned, forming a twisting ball under Dom’s ribs. Seeing Sean’s perfect little nucleus of a warm cozy condo, kids who still had both parents and were given everything they needed, it had to be hard on someone for whom those were all wayward luxuries. Billy had grown up misunderstood, lost any sense of family when his parents died, and then he’d lost it again, and again with each mistake he made. It was so very unfair, the things fate handed to certain people. But then, Billy didn’t believe in fate.

Dom wasn’t really so sure of anything anymore. A month of sharing space with Billy didn’t stop it from being any less unbelievable. It had been a hundred years since Dom had felt like he truly needed to share his time with anyone, and the strength of it was sometimes frightening. Every day he left for work reminding himself that Billy would be there when he returned home. He looked at his watch to count the hours until he could leave, rather than how many more he could stay at the office. Even the space of a room was too far, and so he crossed it.

“Okay?”

Billy sighed and sank back into Dom’s embrace. “Aye.”

“You miss them. Elijah and Bean.”

“…Aye.”

Dom kissed the shell of his ear. “Both the same?”

Billy chuckled a little. “The same, but different reasons.”

“What reasons?” Dom grinned at himself. He was working when he shouldn’t be, interrogating with his gentle questions, and Billy knew it too.

“Like… Like Lizzie tonight,” Billy said, “It’s all better with a bandage with cartoon characters on it. That’s Lij. I miss… I miss distracting him from his problems.”

Dom tightened his arms. “The little brother you never had.”

“Yeah.”

“And Bean?”

Billy laughed quietly again, “Bean’s the big brother I never had.”

Then he tensed in Dom’s arms, all laughter cut short. Dom squeezed, wanting to comfort, but Billy just slipped gently out of his hold and quietly shut himself in the bathroom.

Dom fought with himself, wanting to follow but knowing he shouldn’t. So it was the biggest skeleton in Billy’s closet bothering him tonight, after all.

To Dom, Maggie was only a little girl in a faded photograph on Billy’s nightstand, the only proof besides Billy’s closed introspection that she existed at all.

In the picture, Maggie wore a yellow dress, the color nearly fading into that of the building behind her, and an expression of laughter in her eyes, which were turned to her brother. She had the same color hair, the same shaped face, the soft-sweet eyes. Except for her long pigtails and Billy’s wild mop of ginger curls and short pants, they could have been twins.

Dom imagined that Billy had said something funny just before the shutter had clicked to cause such an expression of joy on Maggie’s little face. He imagined quite easily that she could have very well adored having a brother like Billy. Dom adored having him to himself.

His finger had unconsciously shifted the single toggle holding the flimsy plastic back into the frame and it abruptly fell open in his hands. Turning the cheap frame over to fit it back together, he stopped and stared.

On the back of the photograph, written dark and heavy in Billy’s hand as though it had been traced over several times, were two words.

  


Dom stared for a moment before covering the words under the backing and hastily turning the photograph back over, but his heart stuttered in his chest.

When they had gone into a department store some weeks ago, Billy had shied away from buying a nice cherry wood frame. _It’s always been in that old frame, Dommeh_ , Billy had shrugged, _I’m used to it that way_. Billy felt a remorse that he kept hidden from everyone, including himself, behind that faded photograph.

The sound of the sink shutting off prompted him to set the framed picture back where he’d found it, peeling off his jumper and T-shirt to get ready for bed. When Billy reemerged he was immediately cuddly, nudging in close to Dom with tired eyes and a quiet intensity. He tasted of toothpaste, face sandpapery and soft-mouthed.

“Take me to bed,” he whispered. _Distract me. Please._

Dom nodded, delving further into Billy's mouth to seek his taste behind the mint. Distraction, he could do. Billy was so often the one distracting Dom from his worries, making him feel good, only to do it all over again the next day.

Running his hands beneath the halves of Billy’s linen shirt already hanging open when he’d left the bathroom, Dom brushed up the furred chest and pushed the shirt off to drop to the floor, his fingers lightly tracing the edges of muscle over Billy’s broad shoulders, the strong arms he’d grown to love as Billy wrapped both around his neck.

“Love your arms, Bills,” he murmured, lowering his lips to kiss and taste the delicate inside of Billy’s bicep, following the sinews up over shoulder and neck with small nibbles and tastes. Dom had spent a full day in Pete’s yard, trying to figure out what exactly it was about those arms that wasn't quite right. Now Dom found it only part of the contradiction of Billy: small but strong, gentle and dangerous, carefree and haunted.

Dom walked him backwards until the bed nudged at Billy’s calves, laying him down with his hand carefully behind to guide his head to the pillows. Crawling up over him, Dom suckled at Billy’s neck with teeth and tongue. Billy raised his arms above his head, arching beneath Dom’s mouth, giving over completely. He gave his body so very willingly that it made Dom ache. Billy’s soul had once seemed just as free, but not now. Now his mouth set in a thin line, watching Dom progress down his chest.

Pulling back and fixing Billy with a smile, he set to work on the buttons of Billy's jeans. “So, how much of that little history lesson was true, hmm?”

“What do you mean?” Billy murmured, lifting helpfully. “All of it, more or less.”

“Yeah? The part about Sir Boyd and his great white horse who wasn’t in the movie?”

Billy shrugged lazily, “They always get something wrong.”

Dom drew Billy’s jeans and pants off and crawled back over him. “So you’re telling me you’re descended from Scottish nobles, and I ought to be calling you Sir, or your Lordship or something.”

“A bloke could get used to that,” a small curve appeared at the corner of Billy’s mouth and Dom kissed it. “I think I called you Sir, once or twice.”

“I liked it,” Dom rumbled, then broke into a grin, “William. Your stage name, indeed."

“Not anymore,” Billy sighed, closing his eyes and lighting a hand to Dom’s shoulder, guiding his ministrations back in southerly direction, “Anyway, I don’t know if it’s true, if all the Boyd’s are related. It’s just what Gran used to say.”

Dom paused above Billy’s midsection and gave a snort of laughter. “I don’t exactly need an image of your Gran when I’m about to suck you off.”

Billy chuckled, “Watch yourself. My Gran was a formidable old hen. She’d laugh while she boxed your ears for being vulgar.”

Dom lowered his mouth, letting the tip of his tongue draw a circle around Billy’s navel, “I was thinking of that great, great grandfather of yours, actually. He looks like you. He’s got long sun-bleached hair, and he’s dressed in furs, and leather armour, and a kilt.” He grinned, taking a nip of skin between his teeth just for a moment. “And he looks every bit as sexy and noble on his great white horse as Angus MacFadyen ever did.”

Bill let out a small growl from his throat, laying one hand on Dom’s head. “Bloody horses. They bite.”

“Best mind the back of your kilt, then,” Dom chuckled, and Billy gasped a little at the puffs of hot air on his half-hard cock. His hand pressed harder on the top of Dom’s head.

“I don’t have one. Dom…” Billy whinged a little, “Get on with it.”

Dom settled himself between Billy’s legs. “Every Scot should have a kilt. We’re going to have to go shopping.”

“Too expensive,” Billy muttered.

Dom licked teasingly around his target, whispering, “I don’t mind,” and took the head of Billy’s cock into his mouth.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a hole in the wall.

_Wednesday, October 4th_

It was almost too easy, really. A few internet searches, a few international phone calls, a few credentials thrown around for good measure, and a few days later there it was: an email with an attachment several pages long in his inbox.

Dom downloaded the attachment and hit the _print_ key, pretending the real reason for getting up was to get cup of coffee from the break room, which was conveniently situated just past the printer. The coffee was awful, as usual, to a point Dom actually considered dumping in a heap of one of the numerous flavoured creamers the rest of the crew always had just to mask the sludgy day old taste. Instead, he opted to just pour the rest out in the sink as the printer announced its latest product with a loud beep.

Sliding the papers into a folder and then in his briefcase, Dom darted an eye up at Sean across from his desk, bent at his own reports. He hadn't been spotted, he didn’t think. This wasn’t really Sean’s business, but his best friend had a habit of minding Dom’s affairs a little too closely. Then again, Dom had to credit the man for pulling Dom away from a precipice (and occasionally pushing him off of them) in the last few years. If it wasn’t for Sean’s stubborn persistence about Dom taking that cruise, Dom wouldn’t be doing this for Billy in the first place.

“What?” Sean asked.

Caught staring, Dom shook his head and snapped closed his briefcase over damning evidence of Doing Other Things At Work Besides Work, and got up to drop the reports he’d already finished writing up in Cate’s inbox to sign. With a quirked smile, he announced, “I’m off.”

Sean raised an amused brow at him as he finished writing, “I can’t wait for your next evaluation, when they notice you’ve suddenly dropped overtime like you never realized you could leave at six.”

“I can?” Dom feigned incredulousness, shrugging into his coat, “Good thing I get my work done by then, unlike some people.”

“I’ll be done in ten minutes,” Sean grumbled, hurriedly finishing his own reports. “I’ve got to pick up Allie from the stables, and Chris has a sonogram thing tomorrow morning that I can’t miss…”

Dom shook his head with a grin, tossing his goodbyes over a shoulder and headed for the subway.

It would help, he was certain. Billy would go all introspective and misunderstood, but Dom could pull him out of it, he always could. The list would just show him how easy it could be, give it a chance, show him that it wasn’t a lost cause. And Dom would be there with him the whole way. He got off the train early to drop into the grocery. He would make a nice dinner tonight and then he would bring it up after and they could talk it over, plan how to do it.

Pears were on sale. With a grin, Dom got a wild hair and searched the store for the rest of the ingredients he would need to make Viggo’s chutney. Whole ginger root was expensive but worth it, and there were packages of candied ginger as well that he couldn’t resist. Currants could probably be found in one of the specialty markets somewhere, but he settled on cranberries as a reasonable replacement and also bought two Cornish hens to serve it with. He wondered if he could sneak the cinnamon in without Billy’s notice. It was only a pinch, after all.

Carting armfuls of carrier bags home with a little trouble, Dom managed to get up the stairs to the landing and thump a corner of his briefcase against the door. Billy opened it, brightening.

“Dom, what’s all this?” he laughed as Dom stepped over the threshold, dropped the lot on the carpet and kissed him even as he panted a little from the load.

“I am going to make you a dinner you won’t forget.”

“There were some I should have forgotten?”

Dom stooped to pick up the bags and brought most of them to the kitchen, Billy following with the rest. “Probably. We’ve had some bad take-away, remember? And anyway, it’s been awhile since I’ve really cooked anything worth the trouble.”

Billy watched while Dom unpacked, his bright eyes taking in each item as it found a place in the small kitchenette. “Can I help?”

In the living room, Billy’s guitar was occupying the sofa, as were some CDs and a few songbooks Dom had bought for him. Evening was dropping fast into a night where the damp chill left ice etching the corners of the windows, and a fire crackled merrily between them to keep the cold at bay. Billy was wearing jeans and a heavy olive-colored shirt, one of few that had come with him, and that Dom adored. It made him look warm and open and set off the color of his hair and eyes, as he leaned against the wall by the refrigerator. He looked lovely and content, which was exactly how Dom wanted him to be tonight.

Shaking his head, Dom shrugged off his suit jacket and tugged off his tie, tossing them over the dining room chair for the moment. Crowding close and dropping a kiss high on Billy’s cheek, he whispered, “You just stay the way you are. Right now.”

Billy quirked an amused brow, but said nothing. He took Dom’s jacket and tie to the bedroom and came back, bringing his guitar to one of the barstools to strum while he watched Dom dress the birds and slip them into the oven.

While Dom began peeling and chopping the pears into small dice, occasionally turning to stir the sugar and vinegar mixture in he’d started in a saucepan on the stove, Billy picked out strains of a song that seemed both familiar and not, low and sensuous and voluminous as it floated through the flat.

“I went down to Manhattan today,” Billy said while Dom worked. “Down to that restoration shop you got a card from.”

“Yeah?”

“I talked to the owner, you know, that does it. Nice bloke. He’s from Barcelona, Dommeh,” a note of intensity broke in Billy’s voice. “He… seemed to know… know what he was about. Knew his guitars. And makers.”

Dom stopped his work and searched Billy’s eyes, and the things behind them. “What are you thinking, then?”

Billy shrugged, but smiled as though he was nervous about getting his hopes too far up. “Maybe he’ll help me fix it. Maybe I could get a job there. Maybe... Maybe.”

Screw the plan. Billy had a sparkle about him that was heavy and hopeful and beautiful, and everything wrong about these last few weeks could be put to rights, all at once.

“I have something for you,” he said breathlessly, rinsing and drying his hands of pear juice. Skirting the counter, Dom dragged him by the sleeve to the desk, and pulled the guitar away to rest on the couch so Billy’s hands were free. Pulling the briefcase from where he’d left in on the floor to the desk and popping it open, he held the folder for just a moment in his hands, and then turned, handing the sheaf of papers to Billy with a flourish and a nervous grin.

“What is it?” Billy asked, looking at the handful, flipping through a page or two as though not really reading them.

“It’s an address list,” Dom stated the obvious. “See? It’s all the current addresses for anyone named Margaret Boyd in the UK, or that had Boyd as a maiden name. It’s public census record, you just have to make some calls and pay a fee–“

Billy dropped the sheaf of papers haphazardly on the corner of the desk and turned away, shoulders stiff and hands shoving deeply in his pockets. The papers had landed precariously and in a moment began slipping from the surface to the floor, spreading out over the carpet as they fluttered.

Dom chased a few before admitting defeat and just knelt to begin picking them up. They’d be all out of order now. Shuffling and turning the pages back into a neat pile, he muttered a little nervously. “I thought you’d be excited. The hard part–“

“Well, what did you want me to say?” Billy threw back in a voice thoroughly overshot with tension, “Oh, thanks Dom, it’ll all be sunshine and daisies from here on! The hard part is over! What part of _'let it be'_ did you not understand?”

Dom watched as Billy began to pull and scrub at the back of his neck, saw him getting agitated as he had when he broached this subject back on the ship, and crossed his own arms sternly, bracing for a row. Billy was here now, not on the ship, not alone with his demons, and Dom was going to get him to stop running from this. “You’ve said that since I met you. You’ve told yourself that for years before us, Bill. When are you going to turn around and face it?”

“Don’t you fucking patronize me on this, Dominic.”

“Used to be you were all for taking chances,” Dom pressed, ignoring the interruption, “You took a crazy chance on me, Billy. Why not her?”

“What if I don’t want to, eh? Thought of that?” Bill retorted loudly, having crossed the room to put the entire length of the sofa between them and more, hands now balled up at his sides, “Did you ever think that maybe I’m happy not knowing? You fucking hounding me doesn’t make it easy, do you get that? You always were a brick wall, and you know what else? You’re always so certain that you’re right that you can’t bloody see any other way to be, even when the whole goddamned world can see otherwise.”

“Bill–”

“I don’t need you to tell me when I’m ready for something I thought I was done with, Dominic. I didn’t come here to be your little pet homework project, and I sure as fuck don’t need your _therapy_!” His fist shot out as he spat the last word, connecting with and then going through the wall by his side.

The bubbling of the saucepan in the kitchen seemed as loud as an alarm in the drowning silence. Both of them stared in shock at the hole in the wall for several seconds before anything happened.

Dom had never seen Billy lose control like this, and with a terrifying rush, the reality of Billy’s past came flooding back. Bill had spent his youth angry and fighting, with a temper that could turn vicious in a blink. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen it, but it was the first time he’d seen it do significant damage.

Billy turned back to Dom, his face speeding through a hundred unreadable emotions before he animated, brushing past Dom and right out the door without another word.

Half-sitting against the solid arm of the sofa, Dom breathed shakily for a few minutes, trying to take in the gravity of the situation. Billy was upset. Really fucking pissed off. It was only a bunch of addresses, which could be defunct for all he knew. But it was clearly more than enough to push Billy over a precarious edge.

It was a big mistake.

Dom should have talked to him first. He shouldn’t have pushed so hard. Once, back on his cruise, Dom had pushed too hard on the same subject. He’d asked Billy why he was afraid, and had been met with complete rejection. Billy was not ready for the question then, and he was not ready for the answer now.

He hadn’t expected this much of a mess, but Dom should have known never to expect anything with Billy. Billy was always unexpected, and Dom went into this relationship knowing full well that Billy had that darkness about him. It was all part of why he fell for him in the first place. This perfect man had tender spots that he guarded fiercely from the whole world, and from Dom most of all.

He stood and went to examine the damage. The section of wall was between the tiny laundry closet and short hall to the bathroom. Billy’s fist had smashed through the outer layer of drywall, twisted a metal support beam and coming quite close to an outlet box, denting the opposite side of plaster. He opened the closet door to see the dent, which bulged out on the other side, cracking the paint just above the fold-out ironing board.

He thought again of Billy’s younger days boxing for whatever money he could win, bloody and bruised, broken in a gutter somewhere. It wasn’t an image he liked, not now that he knew it took so very little to bring out that temper that Billy had spent years tamping down. Billy’s tried and true method of dealing with a difficult problem was to not deal with it, full stop.

The reality was that Billy had been here with Dom in New York for hardly any time at all. Six weeks, plus twelve crazy days, and six long, lonely months in between. That was the extent of their relationship. The reality was that this thing was still very new, and they were still learning each other, and things still had potential to slip back to the way they were, very easily.

The sharp, burning smell of sugar and vinegar brought him back, rushing to pull the saucepan from the stove and thrust the ruined mess under the faucet. Sickly smelling steam billowed from it, making his eyes water and his throat choke as he groped to turn off the burner. Dom wasn’t the crying sort, but this was all just as well to making him look it, feel it, nervousness and fear and anger driving through him anyway. Never mind that the beautiful dinner Dom planned was screwed up. Billy wasn’t even here to eat it anymore; he’d gone out in a rampage without even a coat against the bitter cold.

What if Billy left and didn’t come back at all? Dom slapped the oven off and hurried to the window, trying to see down six floors to the sidewalk. Billy was quite capable of simply taking off and leaving Dom’s life completely. He’d done it before, hadn’t he? And why wouldn’t he, the way Dom came home from work in sour moods and depended on Billy to kiss it all better? When Dom had walked away from him on that ship and left him to think about it for six months afterwards before he came to a decision, a decision he would never have made if it weren’t for a silly guitar and a stupid romantic notion that they were meant to be together.

The fear in Dom’s chest changed and felt like it was squeezing him from all directions. Billy could leave. He _could_. Dom had been nothing but a child when Billy had first struck out on his own in the world. Billy had got on for a very long time on his own. He didn’t need Dom’s therapy. He didn’t need Dom for anything.

He groped for his phone, automatically hitting the speed dial for Billy’s mobile, and jumped when it lit up and rang shrilly, right in the charger on the desk in front of him. Dom snapped his own shut, biting off a curse as he shoved it in his pocket. He wrenched his coat out of the closet and stormed down the building’s stairwells and out in the frigid night, looking hard up and down the sidewalks on both sides of the street. It was freezing and blowing, steam bellowing from the manholes over slick pavement, and Billy had gone out with nothing but the shirt on this back and the shoes on his feet.

Where could he go? How do you find someone who’d just walked off into the boroughs of New York City? Dom squinted up and down the street against the chill wind, and struck off to the right. It was as good a choice as any, if Billy had two directions to choose from. He turned over in his mind any places Billy may have mentioned in these last few weeks, places he might go for shelter, places to stay if he meant to run off…

The Subway! Billy had lived in the London Underground for fuck knew how long when he and Bean met. Dom sprinted to the nearest station, taking the stairs two at a time and hurtling over the tills. Below, it was nearly empty, the distant sound of trains echoing off the tiles. Still he checked the benches and around the rubbish bins, even leaning out to glance up and down the tracks off the platform, but he saw no one. Dom had not prayed since he was a boy, but now he did, hoping to God Billy had not jumped down onto the tracks to hide in a maintenance doorway.

He walked until the temperature fell even further and he could not feel the tips of his fingers, checking the next four stations, all with the same results. He turned back, cold and panicky, his mobile held tight in his fingers inside his pocket, then pulled it out to call Billy’s again just in case he’d gone back home. It rang and went to the voicemail. Frustrated beyond belief, he punched the only other speed dial he had.

“Sean? I… we just… I messed up. I really fucking messed up… Yes…. I don’t know, he’s just gone.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can clean, but the mess is still there.

_Wednesday, October 4th_

“He punched a fucking hole in your wall!”

Dom pinched the bridge of his nose, annoyed at the headache forming there while the detail came around once again. It turned out that when Sean got the gist of the argument, that Billy had family he flat-out refused to get in touch with, he was significantly more concerned about the hole in the wall and Billy’s “ violent streak” than he was of Billy being somewhere out in the cold without a coat, or Billy leaving Dom, or how to fix the enormous mistake Dom had just made. Sean really was a stubborn fucker when he wanted to be.

It was quite late in the evening when they’d come to a pause in arguing about it themselves, back in the warmth of Dom’s living room. The stack of addresses sat in a neat pile on the desk, where Sean had placed them what seemed like hours ago.

“Yeah, Sean. I can see that, thanks,” Dom muttered wearily.

“And this doesn’t bother you at all, that he damaged your property, and he could do the same–“

“Enough, all right?” Dom bit the words off, looking away from his friend’s glower, which was saying exactly what Sean would say if he didn’t know any better.

Sean sighed, scrubbing his face and then his hair. “You can’t fix everyone Dom, you ought to know that by now.”

“I never wanted to fix him, Sean, will you listen? I just tried to show him a way to–“

He broke off abruptly. There was the sound of a curse out on the landing, and a telltale minute twist of the doorknob. Sean stood and yanked it open.

Billy’s arms were teetering with bags as Dom’s had been earlier, lips blue and teeth chattering, startled to find Sean there. “Erm. Hallo Sean,” he tried, placating.

“Sean, let him in, he lives here, man,” Dom barked, getting to his feet and shoving Sean aside. He was just glad Billy had come back at all. Whatever else he’d fucked up could be mended so long as Billy gave him half a chance.

Billy entered, keeping a cautious eye on Sean as he put his bags down behind the sofa. “I went out for a think, Dom, and…” he paused, glancing between them. He wrapped his arms around himself tightly and darted an eye at the kitchen clock. “I… shite, it’s that late? I brought you rice pudding from Darshan. I walked that far anyway, and… I went to the hardware store for… ah… plaster, and other things,” Billy continued, looking nervously at the bags on the floor. “I’ll fix it like new. I can fix–”

“I don’t think you should bother,” Sean spoke finally, holding his ground in front of Dom with his arms crossed. “Dom can have maintenance fix it. They’re particular about the quality of the work in this building.”

Billy’s brows knitted very briefly at unspoken insults. Sean was unstoppably loyal, sometimes to a fault, and now he was up in arms like a damned guard dog. He was the type that trusted people quite happily from the get-go until they gave him reason not to, and it was obvious that Billy had lost Sean’s good will.

On the other hand, Billy did not take to being insulted lightly. Already fire sparked in his eyes and his jaw set like tensile steel in Sean’s direction.

Dom put a careful hand on Sean’s shoulder, moving to put himself between him and Billy. The last thing he needed was for the two of them to rip each other apart. “Sean, it’s really late and… you missed putting the girls to bed. Chris will want you home, won’t she? You’ve got that sonogram thing in the morning.”

Sean didn’t look so sure, but after another moment’s glaring daggers in Billy’s direction, he nodded and stood down, face stony as he turned to gather his coat and keys. “You’ll want to do something about that hand, Bill,” he said lowly, closing the door behind himself.

Dom turned back only to see Billy tuck his left hand out of sight behind a thigh and drop his eyes as though innocently studying the carpet. He crossed the few steps to pull the hand into view. “Jesus, Billy.”

Billy’s hand was black and blue, the foremost knuckle cut deeply and the surrounding skin etched with dried blood. His middle finger was swollen almost twice the size it should have been, and it was hot, next to normal-sized fingers that were cold and white.

Billy pulled his hand away and knelt to gather up the bags again. “S’nothing. S’fine.”

Dom lay a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not fine, it’s all swollen and… Christ, you’re _freezing_. You need to go to hospital.”

“ _No._ ” Billy growled so roughly through his teeth as he rose that Dom flinched and backed off, surprised at the force of it. Mutely he watched as Billy took one paper bag to the kitchen, and moved the other two to the floor below the hole in the wall and began to unpack a plastic drop cloth, a tub of plaster, a trowel and several other tools, all the while trying not to let his body quake with shivers.

“Billy–“

“Sean wants the wall fixed properly, Dominic. I’ll show him I can fucking well do it better than your maintenance man.”

“He didn’t mean it like that.”

“Oh aye,” Billy’s accent went loose and thick. “How did he mean it, then, eh? He meant he doesn’t think I can do a good enough job for your fancy flat, just like he doesn’t think I’m good enough for you, right? Me and my bloody fucking temper– _fuck_!” he hissed abruptly as the injured hand banged hard against the tub of plaster in his haste to unpack.

Dom crossed to him in a flash, wanting to help, to stop him from looking the way he did. Knelt on the floor, Billy clutched the injured hand tight to his gut and did his level best to look unaffected, though his face was almost white with cold, bright red staining his cheeks and nose as his jaw clenched with the effort not to let the pain show. A little watery blood oozed from between his fingers. The cut knuckle had reopened with the impact and, left unattended for hours while Billy walked the filthy streets, an infection was already settling in.

“I don’t care about the wall, Bills,” Dom murmured, wanting to touch but afraid of the recoil.

The answer was strained, less anger and more wild attempt to quell the tremor in the words. “I can fix it.”

“I know you can,” Dom whispered, chancing a move closer, a touch to Billy’s trembling shoulder. He wanted this over, this strain between them gone. It was a complete fucking mess that he’d initiated, not Billy’s fault that Dom had to go digging in dark corners. “I won’t… I won’t bring it up again. I’ll throw that list out. I promise I won’t push anymore, just please, let me take care of you.”

Both of Billy’s hands came up and fisted Dom’s shirt. “I’m so… c-cold, Dommeh.” And finally, Dom was able to gather Billy up in his arms and hold him, shifting them both back to lean against the opposite wall in the short hallway.

He kept them there until Billy’s shivering began to ease as he leaned heavily against Dom’s shoulder, still holding the injury against his stomach. Both his and Dom’s shirt were stained where the wound brushed and sluggishly crusted over.

Above in his line of sight, the hole in the wall loomed dark and abnormal, a gaping wrong in a place where he’d come to feel strangely safe. It wasn’t a question of Billy repairing the wall. Dom trusted he could do a fine job of that. But repairing this mess he’d made was something else and Dom had no real idea where to start.

He turned his head to breathe the cold smell of Billy’s hair, press his nose in where the skin was beginning to warm. “Jesus Bills, you scared me,” he whispered.

Billy said nothing, only turning his head to hide his face against Dom’s chest, the warmth of his breath countering the cold tip of his nose through cloth.

They sat against the wall for a bit longer, Dom wondering at Billy’s silence. It would take some doing for Billy to repair the rift with Sean too. He wanted them to get along. He wanted Billy to be part of the family Dom felt he was part of. He wanted Billy to know how much he needed him, how much he appreciated the way he gave Dom something to come home to at the end of the day.

He wanted to erase this whole damned mess, starting with Billy’s still bleeding hand. “Billy. Bills. Up you get, and let’s find your coat.”

“Why?”

“It’s cold outside,” Dom said as he hauled them both up. Billy followed blankly after him while he dug out a clean hand towel to staunch the wound and then went to the coat closet.

But when he realized Dom’s intentions, Billy halted stubbornly. “I’m _not_ going to the hospital.”

“Stop arguing with me, Bills,” Dom grumbled as he pulled both of their heavy coats from the coat closet. Silly arguments were always getting blown way out of proportion. It might have been amusing under different circumstances.

Billy was not amused though. “I don’t want your charity, Dominic. You can’t afford to pay a hospital bill and you’ve spent more than enough of your money on me as it is. I’ve had worse than this, anyway.” He looked down at his wound, gingerly touching the loose flap of skin that should close the gash on his knuckle. “Fucking new construction,” he muttered, “Metal supports instead of wood. Must have hit it on the way in.”

Dom sighed, came back to him and wordlessly stroked a thumb over the scar on Billy’s chin, something leftover from a time long past. Someone had taken care of Billy back then too. “They save trees that way,” he told him softly, cupping Billy’s face in both hands, though Billy refused to meet his gaze. “Hey. You’re not my charity case. You’re not my homework. I want you happy here. Happy with me. And I’m going to fuck up a lot, because I worry, Billy. I worry if you’re upset and you don’t let me in.”

Billy hesitated in his answer, a most peculiar look on his face as he raised his eyes only to Dom’s throat and then down again. “I’ve got a lot of secrets, Dom.”

Dom closed his eyes briefly and nodded. Billy had a lot of secrets. Some he may not ever share, with him or anyone else. “Now let me get your coat on so we can go.”

“Your pudding–“ Billy tried as Dom carefully navigated the injured hand through the pea coat’s sleeve and buttoned it snugly.

“It can wait, until I’m sure your hand still works.”

Billy’s shifted from foot to foot as Dom carefully wrapped the towel around Billy’s hand before grabbing his keys from the desk.

“I really don’t like hospitals, Dom,” Billy tried plaintively.

Dom nodded at this final feeble attempt at protest. Billy had good reason not to like hospitals. People went in there and didn’t come back out. “I’ll be with you all the time. Well, as much as they’ll let me.”

Billy sighed at his hand, held before him in a green and white towel. “Brick wall.”

He remained silent the entire taxi ride to the hospital, and said very little in the hospital waiting room while they filled out paperwork. It was late, and the waiting room held roughly twenty people ahead of them.

Dom stepped out the doors to get a signal on his phone so he could leave a message on Cate’s voicemail. They’d be here into the morning, and he wasn’t about to leave Billy and go to work until he was certain things between them were at least patched. From the waiting room, Billy looked glass-eyed at the floor. Dom tried to press his hand against the door as though it would provide a connection between them, but the sliding door only sliced right through.

  
 _Thursday, October 5th_

  
It must have been hours later when Dom startled from his doze as Billy’s name was called. Billy was slumped heavily against his shoulder, still wrapped in his woolen pea coat, though now his hair was sweaty, his skin clammy and lined in the too-bright hospital florescence.

They were led to a gurney in a three-bed exam room by a nurse, and waited a further twenty minutes while doctors and nurses crossed the halls. There were few times Dom came to this hospital feeling useless. He could not help but wish that his credentials flashed around could get them out of this sooner. Billy said nothing, though he looked grey and drawn and terrible, and all of it was Dom’s fault.

“William Boyd?” a woman came in, looking over a chart. “Dr. Vaswani. And how are you this morning?”

Billy had the grace to raise his right hand for her to shake. “Been better.”

“So, you’ve cut your hand. And you’ve got a fever,” she paused, looking him over and nodding to the nurse, who stuck an electric thermometer in his ear. “How long ago did this happen?”

Billy did not answer, or perhaps did not know exactly how long he’d been gone, and Dom answered quietly from his chair. “Around seven, last night. And he was outside for almost five hours afterwards, without a coat.”

Dr. Vaswani arched a brow at this while she read the thermometer read-out. “Well, that wasn’t helpful, at any rate.”

“I wasn’t outside the whole time,” Billy muttered.

She unwrapped the towel from his hand, and held both hands out to compare the swelling, asking him to flex each digit in turn. The middle one could bend, but only slightly.

“Well, there doesn’t appear to be any tendon damage. We’ll put a few stitches in just to hold it closed, but it’ll need to stay partially open to drain. You’ll need to keep it very clean. Knuckle wounds are very susceptible to infection. Does it tingle when you move it?”

Billy wriggled the finger slightly. “Yes.”

“There may be some nerve damage, which is slow to heel. You may lose sensation at the fingertip anywhere from a few months to a year.”

Billy looked startled at this, staring down at his swollen hand.

“So, just a few questions. How did this happen?”

“I…” Billy straightened a little. “I punched through a wall.”

“Were there any rusty nails or metal?”

“The supports are metal,” Dom put in.

“Save trees that way,” Billy murmured to his knees.

Dom’s heart lurched at the attempt at lightness, but it didn’t take away the worry. “It’s a pretty new remodel, I don’t think anything was rusted,” he told her.

“Have you had a tetanus shot in the last ten years?” she asked.

Billy mopped his face with his good hand. “I… don’t remember.”

“We’d better do one. I’ll have one of the residents in to stitch that hand.” She turned to Dom, “Sir, if you don’t mind waiting…”

“Oh! I…okay, I’ll just…?” Dom stood, looking at Billy to assure him, to be assured, but Billy would not look up. Dom swallowed and left.

A half-hour ticked slowly in the waiting room, a bad sitcom buzzing on the TV mounted in the corner. Dom’s mind was blank and tired of going over the events that ran like a movie in his head. He would go home and trash the list, and never speak of it again as long as they could work this out, as long as this wasn’t the end. Billy had come all the way here and in only a few weeks Dom had worn him to the nub already, just like he had known he would all along.

“Mister…?” Dr. Vaswani found him with his arms curled around knees held tight to his chest, before he jumped up.

“Monaghan. Dom. Is Billy ready?”

“Almost. So Mr. Boyd says he has no insurance, or employment…”

“I’ll be paying for it all,” Dom said immediately. “He’s my partner.”

She nodded, folding her arms as she regarded the blood stains on his otherwise pristine shirt. He still wore his work slacks and shoes. He flushed, his hand automatically tugging at his ear. “We… we had a fight, but it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t…”

“Mr. Monaghan…”

“I mean, I’m a social worker, it’s…”

“ _Mr. Monaghan_ ,” She smiled gently, “You’re not obligated to explain anything, you know. Incidentally, I remember you now.”

Dom blinked. It was four o’clock in the morning and he hadn’t had a round meal all day but for a bagel at lunch, he simply wasn’t in much of a state to follow logic at the moment.

“The Casiano girl, Shiloh. That was yours, yes?”

Dom hesitated and nodded.

“Well, I don’t expect you’d remember, but she was mine for a time that night too, so I can sympathize.”

Dom swallowed twice at the tickle in his throat. Billy had helped him through that. Billy had pushed him through it, fuck, Billy was the only reason Dom could still get out of bed in the morning. “Is he going to be okay?”

She smiled, turning to walk back to the room with Dom in tow, “Yes. He needs to be kept warm, and he needs to sleep. And later he’ll need to be sure to keep that hand clean and not move it much until the stitches come out, which I’m thinking can be… ten days. And I’ll need him to be sure to finish a round of antibiotics.” She motioned him into the room before her, where Billy’s hand was being wrapped in gauze. “I’ll order a few doses of a pain-killer for the next day or two. Other than that, you’re good to go.“

She and the resident left the room. The other two beds were now empty, as their occupants had been moved or discharged. Dom took a hesitant step forward.

“Did it hurt?” he murmured, fiddling with the buttons on Billy’s coat in his hands. “The stitches?”

Billy shrugged one shoulder, looking at the floor. “Fucking tetanus shot hurt worse. But they did it in the left one, so at least one arm works.”

“Good, I won’t have to wipe your arse for you,” Dom joked, but it hung heavy in the air.

“Said we have to buy a bunch of shite too, gauze, and swabs and Beta… Beta-something.” Billy muttered, “I’ll get it myself at a chemist. It’s too expensive to buy here.

Dom started, “I don’t m–“

“I wish you’d stop saying that,” Billy cut across him sharply. “ _I don’t mind_. I _do_ mind, Dom. And I’ll pay you back for this.”

Dom twisted the coat in his hands, nervously. Christ, he went to work everyday and Billy felt bloody useless. Dom had consistently kept Billy home and jobless instead of letting him taking the odd, migratory sort of jobs he’d shown interest in, insisted that Billy apply for work visas and get a “real” job that “suited” him, and the whole time he was caging Billy in, forcing him to adhere to a standard. Dom didn’t care if Billy paid him back. He just wanted this mess fixed.

“There’s no chemist open now, Billy. I’ll just get it with everything else here, I don’t m–“ Dom bit his tongue at the sharp look that earned him. “You’ll need to have it in the morning anyhow.”

Billy looked at him with disdain, his sunken eyes angry, but too tired to do anything about it. He still shivered a little, and Dom stood to drape his jacket over his shoulders.

“Let’s just go home and deal with it tomorrow.”

The sky was already grey in the east as Dom paid the cabbie and followed Billy up the stairs, unlocking the flat and locking it again behind them. Billy let Dom pull his coat off and stumbled to the bathroom, closing the door. Dom busied himself hanging their coats, pulling out the medications and reading the dosages. Armed with the antibiotic and the industrial strength Tylenol and a water, he entered the bedroom, finding Billy halfway to undressed and doing fine on his own. He waited until Billy crawled into his half of the bed and gave him the pills, which he took with the full glass of water. Dom pulled an extra blanket out of the wardrobe and spread it over top of the comforter, pulling the bedroom curtains closed to block out the oncoming light of day.

Out in the hall, the hole in the wall loomed. The floor was littered with the trowels and other things Billy had brought home, and in the kitchen the takeaway box of rice pudding, all bought with his own small amount of saved cash that he’d brought with him and changed to American currency. That was what tightened Dom’s throat more than the hole in the wall itself.

Dom cleaned the kitchen methodically. He scrubbed hard at the burnt sugar in his best saucepan before simply leaving it to soak, tossing limp and brown pieces of pear, the remains of what would have been Viggo’s chutney in the bin, along with two partially-baked Cornish hens. Tying the liner, he ducked quickly out of the flat and down the hall to push it through the trash chute. He wiped the counter tops, the sink, and emptied the dishwasher.

Morning was full now, illuminating the living room with cold light. Billy’s guitar still sat out on the sofa and his books covered the cushions. Dom carefully tucked it back in its hardback case, and gathered the books back onto the shelves. There was little left to clean without making too much noise.

Giving in to the pull, Dom padded softly to the bedroom and gazed at where Billy slept. He was curled towards the window beneath the blankets at the edge of the mattress, far away from Dom’s empty side.

He knelt, watching Billy’s breath rise and fall. His right hand, unbruised and free of stitches, lay outside of the blanket. He stroked over the knuckles and tendons with a light touch. Billy had once told him that he used to whisper things to him while he slept, things he couldn’t say when they were awake.

Dom sighed and pressed his forehead to the edge of the mattress and the warmth of Billy’s arm, and muttered, “I don’t suppose it makes any difference now, but I’m sorry. For the list and for… making you come here... not being what you thought you wanted. Everything. But…” Dom couldn’t help himself, hating his own selfishness. “…but please, forgive me and stay.”

He turned back out to the living room, where the light from the windows fell onto the stack of papers on the desk, unassuming and harmless as the tin box beside them. He grabbed the pile and stalked out of the apartment once again, wadding and shredding them as he pushed them all down the trash chute. Then he locked the door behind himself one final time, curled up in the chilly corner of the sofa, and fell asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad to worse.

_Thursday, October 5th_

“Dom.”

Dom snuffled at the touch on his shoulder and pushed his face into the back of the sofa.

“Wake up, Dommeh.”

Squinting at the brightness of the flat, he rolled over and scrubbed salt from his eyes. “’Time is it?”

“Two.”

“Fuck,” Dom groaned and stretched his back, which protested the sofa with a loud crack.

Billy stood nearby, picking at the bandage in annoyance. He breathed harshly through his nose, the fingers of his right hand searching along the gauze. It seemed that the nurse had done a very good job of wrapping it, until he bared his teeth, gripped the whole thing at the wrist and simply ripped it off like a sock.

Dropping the bandage, he looked at the stitches crossly. The swelling was down, but his hand looked mangled and grotesque, and the wound itself was crusted with drainage.

Dom picked up the discarded bandage and stood up to look closer. “We should clean that. She said twice a day at least–“

“I can clean it myself, Dom,” Billy snapped suddenly. He looked away, picking up a full water glass and gesturing to the pill bottles on the end table. “Just open those antibiotics. Please.”

Dom shut his mouth, stung as he twisted the first bottle open and handed over the pill, and then reached for the painkiller.

“I don’t need that one,” Billy told him after draining the glass, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist, and turning to the bathroom. His eyes were magnetically drawn to the gaping hole in the plaster on the way.

Dom read the bottle of the prescription Tylenol again. _Every five hours as needed for pain and fever._ It included only four pills, of which Billy had taken only one when they’d come home hours ago.

“Do you still have a fever? If it still hurts you can–” Dom followed after him, shutting up once again at a curt glance from Billy in the mirror as he rummaged through the arsenal of gauze, ointments and packets they’d brought back from the hospital for Betadine swabs.

Dom watched for a moment from the doorway, wondering just how long Billy had tried to get the childproof bottle open himself with a bandaged hand before he’d woken Dom to do it. He also wondered just how tightly Billy could clench his jaw before he broke a tooth as he swabbed the crust from his stitches. It _did_ hurt, he didn’t need to go on playing macho.

“S’posed to have food with these. I’ll make you something,” Dom muttered instead of speaking his mind.

Billy didn’t want help. With _anything_. He’d made that very fucking clear. And yet Dom kept on offering, making up fried egg sandwiches when Billy was perfectly capable of feeding himself. He ate half of his own sandwich before Billy emerged, hand clean but unwrapped, a red, blue and yellow mess of bruising and black stitches marring his flesh. Dom’s appetite promptly left him, and he pushed the rest of his plate in Billy’s direction and switched on the TV.

Billy read the _Times_ from cover to cover every morning. Dom had never really known how long it took a person to do that. He never did it himself, flipping only to sections of interest and then running off to work, or doing yoga in the living room and jumping in the shower on the weekends while Billy was still at it. Now it seemed to take him hours of the afternoon, while Dom watched repeats of insect documentaries he’d seen many times. He ordinarily watched these with avid fascination, but today it was with distracted disinterest. Outside, fog lay thick between the buildings, occasionally swirling up and around behind the windows as the wind picked up and fell again, the cold stillness cut only by the voice of David Attenborough, the tick of the kitchen clock and the rustle of a turned page.

Dom didn’t know when he’d fallen asleep again, but he woke very suddenly to a thump and a loud curse.

“Billy? What–“ he jumped up, finding Billy on his knees in the hall looking at his hand once again. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

Rounding the sofa, Dom took in the scene before him. “Doesn’t look like nothing.”

Plastic sheeting was spread over the floor, with tools out over top. Billy had some sort of paper and wire patch over the hole in the wall, affixed with plaster tape and who knew what else. Billy himself was on his knees in the middle of it all, working himself into a red faced state trying to get the tub of plaster open.

“What was that noise?”

“Which noise, Dom?” Billy grumbled, exasperated, “If you didn’t sleep like the bloody dead, you’d have heard a few.” He took up a trowel and tried to wedge it under the bucket’s lid, but only succeeded in having it slip hard over top, right into the heel of his opposite hand, and he bit off another string of colorful words.

“Billy!” Dom knelt by him, grabbing for the hand to see. “You git, you’re going to make it worse!”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Dominic, it’s just a scratch!” Billy spat, yanking away and examining his palm, where the corner of the trowel had nicked him.

“You don’t need to do this right now! You can’t get this shit ground into your stitches. Do you want to get an infection?”

“I’ve enough fucking antibiotic in me to clean out a week-old carcass, what the fuck does it matter?” Billy grabbed for the trowel and bucket again, but Dom was quicker.

Pulling the tub away, he dug his fingernails under the plastic rim, ripped the lid off and thrust it at Billy. “Well then, by all means. And just in case you never wanted to play guitar again, you could really do a first rate job of it and clean out the garbage disposal next, it’s been a bit slow.” He pushed the tub back at Billy roughly and heaved himself up, planting himself sulkily back on the sofa.

Billy narrowed his eyes as he stood, the plaster-slicked lid in his bad hand and the trowel in the good one. “Do you want your fucking wall fixed or not? Because I could just leave it like that for you to remember me by, if you like.”

“Wouldn’t kill you to ask for a little help,” Dom pouted, looking at the white paste in disgust.

“I’ll ask when I fucking want it,” Billy growled, using the trowel to scrape the mud off of the lid and slapping it onto the wall with an angry splat.

Dom ground his teeth and yanked a book from the shelves, flipping pages sporadically, though he couldn’t concentrate on the words. It was far too soon for Billy to be getting his stitches wet and filthy, and there was nothing Dom could do to about it. Billy was stubborn and unwilling to listen to reason. He could leave the hole in the wall for Dom to _remember him by_ , which sounded rather like an ultimatum. Sure, he could patch it, cover it right over, just like he did with all his shameful little secrets.

The trowel scraped smoothly over the wall, in time developing a rhythm Dom could see in the careful lightness of Billy’s strokes, and the way he looked sidelong down the wall to see how level the coating was. Billy had done this before, but then, he’d done all sorts of odd jobs. He could also plant trees and lay brickwork. Billy was apparently quite skilled in building walls of many kinds.

It was now already past seven, and Dom declared the day a complete waste to himself. He’d have done so out loud if he thought it would be appreciated. Bumping around in the kitchen while Billy worked, he tried to find something to wrestle into a dinner before giving up and ordering a pizza.

When it arrived forty-five minutes later, he doled it out on plates, setting one of Billy’s antibiotics next to his water glass on the table. He opened the painkiller bottle and left it that way. Billy could pretend to be tough all he liked, but Dom could still give him the option of admitting it always hurt worse on the second day.

He half-expected that Billy would refuse the food altogether. After all, Dom had paid for it. But Billy washed his hands (Dom noticed just how careful he was about it), missing the smudges of plaster on his neck and forehead and stuck in his sweaty hair. He even muttered a _thank you_ as he sat down at the table opposite and fell to, the words soft and normal enough to confuse Dom all the more.

“Bill.”

“Dom.”

Dom bit his lip. Billy had taken that tone with him before, that light, carefree _we’re not having this conversation_ tone that never meant things would go well. But before Dom could form his own questions, Billy had one of his own.

“Why didn’t you go to work today?”

Dom blinked. “Why do you think?”

Billy’s jaw set as he looked away across the living room. “You’ll go tomorrow.”

Dom stared at him, wondering what the hell that meant, and if it was a request or a demand. Everything about Billy had become so fucking cryptic in the last twenty-four hours, and he just couldn’t take it anymore.

“Why can’t you… How…” Pressing his palms to his eyes, Dom shook his head, “Where the fuck are you, Billy?”

“What?”

“Jesus. What’s wrong? Why is it you told me so much before and now you won’t even talk to me?”

Billy didn’t look back at him, only shaking his head and picking at dried plaster on his skin. “I don’t know what you’re on about.”

“You know exactly what I mean, Billy. I mean you being so fucking unhappy when you think I can’t see. I’m talking about you and you’re whole show for me and Sean and everyone when I know you can’t wait to get the hell away. I’m talking about how you used to be and how you are.”

“I’m not any different–”

“Oh right, turn the other one. Why do you fucking disappear at the mere mention of your sister, of anything you’ve bollixed up in your life before? That’s right, suck it in, I can see you doing it already. Why did you tell me all that shit on the boat and now when all I do is try to help, you clam up? When did you become off limits to me? What the fuck are you so afraid of?”

Billy took a very deep breath and closed his eyes. His voice pitched soft, a hundred times more foreboding than it ever was out loud. “Dom, can you just…”

Dom was beyond exasperated, “Just _what_?”

“Leave it. Let it be. Please.”

It wasn’t a question, nor was it the answer Dom was looking for. He fumed silently, picking up their plates and dumping them unceremoniously in the sink, breathing hard and angry. Billy remained at the table and watched as he rounded the worktop, yanked his coat from the closet, grabbed his keys and swept out the door.

The wind rose and fell, rattling between the buildings, lifting dead leaves pooled in gutters and scattering them on the sidewalks, twisting through his hair like icy fingers before it died down. The trees that were not already stripped clung to their last shriveled leaves. The grey cloud overhead turned orange and red as the sun went down, smog casting the city into a filtered haze. Dom wished the damned wind would blow it all away and bring back the stars, or a fierce storm, anything but constant, cold, desolate grey. He tipped his coat collar up to his ears, shoved his hands into his pockets and struck off around the corner. Billy would see what it felt like to have someone stalk off and disappear into the city.

It didn’t make any sense. On the boat, Billy had been wide open to him. He’d volunteered his history to Dom’s perusal, and now the subject was completely forbidden. The answer was painfully simple in his head. Billy needed help, and Dom wanted to help him. Billy had helped Dom, and now he wanted to return the favour. Billy was a stubborn fuck, too proud to take a hand when it was offered. He didn’t understand at all.

The wind came back up, sweeping a hat from the head of an old man walking briskly several yards ahead. It bounced and skittered away as the old man chased frantically after, blowing ever closer to the busy street.

“Oi, mate! Look out!” Dom crossed the distance in a blink, yanking the old man back, seconds from stepping off the curb and into the path of a massive SUV.

“Confounded idiot!” squawked the old man in anger, and then in surprise, “He didn’t even see me!”

Dom removed his arm from around the man’s ribs. “No, I don’t think he did,” he affirmed quietly, trying to catch his own breath. His heart pounded now from relief instead of the previous anger, glad he hadn’t been witness to what had nearly happened.

The man was stocky boned and not at all hunched or wasted, though it had been easy enough for Dom to pull him out of the path of a roaring Denali. Without his hat, his white hair was cropped short and simple, his jaw clean-shaven, though rough at this hour. He had the look of a man who steadfastly refused to feel his age, but was beginning to against his will.

Checking carefully for traffic this time, the old man leaned back out over the curb to see into the dark storm drain beneath the sidewalk where the hat had blown. “Dammit,” he sighed, shaking his head sorrowfully, “I suppose that’s it, then. Lost. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He looked up at Dom, sharp grey eyes studying him carefully, and Dom looked back, a little unsure if the man was apologizing to him, and if so, why.

“Well, my boy,” the man stood a little taller, “The kindness of strangers is a rare thing to be gifted, eh?” He nodded towards the Starbucks on the corner, “Shall buy you a coffee, if I may? You only gave me a few more years, you know.”

Dom’s face colored a bit and looked away down the street, back the way he’d come. His first instinct was to refuse, say he had somewhere to be. But he didn’t, and in truth he’d stalked out of the house with no sense of direction whatsoever. He could have just as easily gone the other way, and this old man wouldn’t be offering coffee to anyone. “I only did what anyone else would have done,” he shrugged.

“Rubbish. Not in this city, where everyone walks with their heads down.” The man opened the café door and motioned Dom in. “You’re out of Manchester, by the sound of it, eh? I’m from Essex myself. That nearly spoilt my weekend. Anything you like, son, go on, go on.”

Dom ordered his usual tall black with the old man’s decaf latté, watching guiltily as his wrinkled fingers divvied out bills to the cashier, and sat at the table he was directed to by a window. Cars and taxis continued to speed past the corner in the growing dark. The street lamps began to flick on, bathing the sidewalk in amber light.

“Everything goes too damned fast these days,” The man chuckled, his eyes remained at the corner storm drain out the window, and then heaved a great sigh. “My Bea gave me that hat for my birthday, last year. I lost her a few months ago. Cancer. Too fast. Fifty-seven years together and not nearly enough.”

Dom tugged at his ear, uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.”

“Did you know her?”

Dom blinked and shook his head.

“Well then, don’t be sorry. Always bothered me, people apologizing when someone dies, it’s not as though you had anything to do with it. May I bend your ear for a bit, lad? I don’t get to talk to many people anymore.”

Before he knew the man’s name, Dom was discovering that he had come to New York in 1952, and that Bea had been both very young at seventeen and very pregnant when they’d crossed the Atlantic on a carrier ship. “Things were different back then. People weren’t in such a big damned hurry,” the man laughed, “But then, it wasn’t acceptable for a woman to have a child out of wedlock, either, mind you. And her blueblood parents weren’t about to give her to me, so I stole her away.”

Dom gave the man a twitched smile, though the taste in his mouth was bittersweet. Billy was like that on a ship in another ocean, in another time. A romantic and a thief, if Dom’s heart had anything at all to say. Dom lowered his eyes to his coffee, wondering where that Billy had gone. “Lucky girl.”

“Yes, well, she thought so,” the man said with faraway eyes. “But it was a mistake, now I think on it. Our kids grew up without grandparents to dote on them, and Bea and I had to work hard to survive. None of that Great American Dream codswallop, my boy, we fought tooth and nail to make do. Now my children are grown and have children of their own. There are so many things I should have done differently. Better.” The man sighed, leaning his chin on a gnarled old hand, and looked across the table at Dom. “What about you? What’s your story, hmm?”

“My story?”

“You look like shit, my boy, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

Dom met the man’s eyes across the table, surprised at the blunt statement from such a well-spoken gentleman. He glanced down at himself, horrified to find he had never changed, his white shirt and work slacks a wrinkled mess, stained along the front. He tried to comb a hand through his hair and found it ratty and clumpy with yesterday’s gel. “Thanks mate.”

“What is it, then? Did she boot you out to cool off or did you see yourself out?”

Dom gazed out the window at the nearly dark street, where leaves still whipped and swirled in the sulphuric light. He’d not known how transparent he was, but now that he thought about it, walking out in a fury hadn’t been the greatest idea. “I did. And he’s probably packing already,” he said, meeting the old man’s eyes levelly.

The old man arched an eyebrow and studied him thoughtfully, then nodded and sipped his coffee. “You’re a right piece of work, I can see that.”

Dom closed his eyes and pressed at the ache between them with his palm. “So is he.”

“That your blood or his?”

Dom scrubbed in effectually at the stain on his shirt. “His. He… we had a row and he punched the wall and it all…” he shook his head and closed his eyes, at a loss, “it all fell apart from there. I only wanted to help him.”

They opened again in surprise at a smack to his shoulder, the man’s sharp grey eyes drilling back into his. “Then what the bloody hell are you sitting here for, letting a bothersome old fart like me chat your ears off?”

Dom stared back, shocked.

“You dolt. You look like you’ve lost your puppy, and you’re sitting on your thumb waiting for the world to fall in. You think my Bea never ripped me to shreds for leaving the seat up? If I’ve learnt anything about love in my time, it’s that you fight so you can make-up again.”

Dom fish-mouthed for a moment until the old man waved him away harshly, “Go on, go on, never mind me. I had fifty-seven years of company I don’t regret, boy. Don’t make the mistake of not fighting for it.”

Stumbling out of his seat, Dom stopped and turned back dumbly, “I don’t know how to make this up.”

“Think I do?” The old man shot back. “Apologies and roses seemed to do the trick, but I don’t know about your lot. Now get you gone.”

Dom blankly pushed his way out the door and back in the direction of home, leaning into the wind, his mind fuzzy. The old man’s words swam in his head, giddy with caffeine, tired from disrupted sleep, a strange encounter to say the least. But his anger had dissipated into remorse and fear once again, wishing it was as simple as patching a hole.

Billy was already asleep when he got back in. The lump of his body curled fetally beneath the sheet, smudges of plaster on his face and neck, the whistle of his breath giving away how deep his exhaustion went. The bottle of painkillers lay open on the bedside, and another pill was gone. Billy was soft after all, but then, Dom knew that already.

Feeling silly, Dom placed a flower on the pillow by Billy’s ear, one of the last orange dahlias still clinging to its petals in the chill wind and pilfered from a window well two buildings down.

He showered quickly and dragged his pillow and alarm clock out to the sofa, exhausted from this disjointed, awful day. Tomorrow he would go to work. There was no need to stay, save to stop Billy from packing his things and leaving. He realized with terrifying clarity that he could not prevent it even if he physically blocked the door. He could only hope that Billy was soft enough to forgive an overblown mistake. Apologies and roses, the old man said, but he supposed a stolen flower would have to suffice.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What a mess we've made.

_Friday, October 6th_

Dom flipped his phone open, tapping his shoe against the car door as he stared at the screen. Sean heaved an exhale, checked his mirrors, flicked his blinker off and continued straight through the intersection.

“That was our turn-off,” Dom pointed out, snapping the mobile shut and pushing it back in his pocket.

Sean said nothing and applied his foot firmer on the gas. He had been civil and quiet throughout the morning, leaving Billy out of any conversation whatsoever. Even Cate had not asked for any more of an explanation for Dom’s absence the day before than he had given in his voice mail from the hospital. Audrey was sweet, bubbly and oblivious as usual. Matilda was home with her own kids and the flu.

Everything felt so deceptively normal, and the whole situation made Dom even more uncomfortable than he already was. He fidgeted endlessly through work, distracted and jumpy. When he and Sean set out on their way to a hospital consult after lunch, Sean had done most of the talking, leaving Dom to fill out reports until they continued silently on to the foster check. Now Sean had stopped talking to him altogether, and had apparently decided to take the scenic route.

“How did the sonogram go?” Dom asked, trying for a light facsimile of ease.

“Fine.”

“Everything’s normal?”

“Everything’s fine, Dominic.”

“Right,” Dom muttered. “Everything’s just peachy.”

Sean swung the car into the right lane, veering close to Dom’s flat. In fact, he pulled to an abrupt stop at the curb beside Dom’s building, earning an angry honk from a taxi behind before it swerved dangerously around them.

“Sean, the foster is back on Ingram street, what–“

“Get out, Dom,” Sean said tightly.

“What are you on about? We’re fucking working.”

“And you’ve opened and closed your phone every ten minutes since you came in this morning and I’ve had enough. Go home,” Sean growled.

“You know I can’t do that, and you can’t–“

“You were my intern. I can tell you what to do and I’m telling you to go home early.” Another taxi surged around them, leaning on the horn. “Hurry up, you idiot, I’m gonna get a ticket sitting here.”

Dom raised his brows at this. Sean had never once pulled rank, though technically he did have it. “But… my stuff is still at the office.”

Sean gave an amused huff, “Well, God fucking forbid. Are you really going to do any sort of work at home this weekend? I think you have more important things to work out. Take a break, Dom. Come back when you can think straight, which had better be by Monday.”

Dom tried a crooked grin, “Forgetting who you’re talking to, mate.”

“Jesus, you’re a pain in my ass. Out.”

Dom unfastened his belt and got out of the car. The afternoon was bitter cold and misty, and Sean’s car made a jet of exhaust as it pulled away into traffic without so much as a goodbye.

“Love you too, Sean,” he grumbled sulkily, then to the city in general, “I’m not wanted anywhere, am I?”

He glanced up at his building, counting to his own windows. The sun was still up, somewhere above the grey cloud that had hung thick and low over the city for days now, and the glass reflected it rather than show anything of what went on behind them. For all he knew, Billy had packed up the meager possessions he’d come here with and locked up, leaving his key under the mat. The possibility was one he didn’t think he could face just yet.

Turning on his heel, he walked instead down the block, where the light pines and evergreen of Starbucks did very little to stave off the chill as far as décor and employee hospitality went, but at least they had the thermostat cranked up. He ordered his usual.

The coffee shop was possibly the quietest it had ever been. The usual bustle and push of harried, caffeine-starved people had fallen to only the whine of Fiona Apple from the speakers and the gossip of the baristas in the afternoon, too late for the lunch crowd and too early for the rush hour. There was a young couple nestled to one side of the service counter, huddled close in coats and fashionable clothes in the same side of a small booth. They drank frothy drinks and fed each other pieces of pastry, ignorant of the world spinning around them. Dom had nothing against this, but just occasionally a bloke didn’t need to be reminded of how irrevocably fucked up his own relationship was. They didn’t need to rub it in. Clutching his coffee, he turned to the opposite side of the counter, and his heart nearly back-flipped.

Billy sat at the very table Dom had shared with the old man yesterday, his face still and eyes careful, as if he’d been watching since Dom walked in. Dom stared back, surprised, but there was no malice between them here. He had frequented this café over the years, even before the chain bought it out, but in the weeks since Billy came, they’d never been here together.

Dom took a fortifying sip of his coffee before he slid into the chair opposite, feigning interest in the passers by outside the windows before he succumbed and gave Billy a good once over. He was clothed in a thick cream jumper (one Dom had bought for him) with a dark scarf around his neck (one of Dom’s). He’d not shaved since the fight, and the stubble on his cheeks was just beginning to look gold when it caught the light. His hand was wrapped with a strip of clean gauze, just enough to conceal the ugly wound.

“Early, for you,” Billy spoke first, pursing his lips and blowing on his drink before he sipped it.

Dom pulled his eyes back to his own coffee and nodded. “Sean kicked me out for being useless.”

He wasn’t going to tell Billy about how he’d thought about calling a dozen times, and didn’t only because he was afraid the phone would ring out to an empty voice mailbox, and he’d find the phone left on the desk in a cold empty flat. But Billy hadn’t left. Not really.

Sometimes, Dom wondered about the whole fate thing Billy was so firm on. He had chosen to come to the coffee shop and found Billy here. If he’d gone home, would Billy have been truly gone? Dom would have thought so. He’d have found his flat empty and believed then and there that it was finished. He huffed quiet laughter to himself. If a tree falls in the forest…

There was something about this atmosphere, the quiet, the very fact that they were sitting opposite each other in public without falling directly back into last night’s quarrel. The silence hovering between them felt almost like a different time, not uncomfortable exactly, but stilted. At coffee shops people discussed bigger things, politics and art and philosophy with strangers and friends alike, as though there was something here that kept petty little conflicts out.

“What is fate, really, do you think?” Dom asked, gazing out the window, but watching Billy in his peripheral vision.

Billy stirred his coffee slowly, his face calm. “I don’t think it’s anything, Dom.”

That was the expected answer. “Then why do things happen that can’t be explained away? Why does it feel like things are meant to happen, whether they’re… whether they’re good or bad?”

“Every choice we make leads to the next, that’s all. Sometimes it’s a good choice. Sometimes it’s not. It’s not destiny, Dom.” Billy gave a small sigh, “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Sometimes there is no choice,” Dom disagreed and pointed outside the window. “Last night, I pulled some bloke off that curb instead of letting him step in front of traffic. I could have gone the other direction, Bill. I could have gone left, and that old man would be dead instead of buying me a coffee and giving me advice. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t make a choice.” He paused, twisting his fingers and staring at the wood grain of the tabletop. “I could have gone to Thailand or… Madagascar. I didn’t have to choose New Zealand.”

He stopped, though he could have said more. The couple from the other side of the counter rose, their steps in unison. The man held the woman close round the hip, pressing a kiss to her cheek without breaking stride. The bells above the door jingled merrily for them, a sound they were too lost in each other to hear or acknowledge, but strange and foreign in Dom’s world, where everything was uprooted and disastrous. He could have never gotten on that boat, and then he would have never met the man before him.

“But you did.”

Dom raised his eyes and found Billy’s face down-turned and weary, his fingers tracing the lip of his cup, the swirling designs in the paper. “Used to be,” Billy added softly, “You were more skeptical.”

Dom blinked. “Why do you say that?”

“Because we’ve had this conversation before,” he looked back at Dom directly, his eyes and features soft, earnest, asking Dom to remember, “In a cafe in Kaikoura, you and I discussed the merits of fate and of talking, and… not talking. Only this time, there’s no whale.”

 _You make your own fate, Dominic_ , Billy had said that day, when the tables had been turned and it had been Billy telling stories of mythical guitars and prying into business that wasn’t his own. And yet, there had been the whale, sudden and glorious, appearing right when Dom had sought to break everything off. Right when Dom knew he was flailing and could do nothing, _nothing at all_ to break his fall. He had a choice about getting on that boat, but not about falling so profoundly in love.

Dom looked away. “Why are you so certain about it?”

“I don’t like thinking some people are meant to suffer,” Billy said without pause. “Life isn’t worth a shite if that’s the way it is.” He drained the last of his cup and stood up decisively, “Let’s go back to the flat, Dom.”

At home, Dom knew unsaid words would come out, and the mess would still be there. He took a deep breath and a last sip, wondering what it would be like to walk with Billy out of the café like that couple, with no worries or cares. He walked beside Billy in the cold, wishing it would be okay to take his hand, berating him silently for not wearing a coat over his jumper though it was only around the block. Hating himself for not just letting it be.

Inside, he hung his coat, changed to jeans and brushed his teeth. Leaning over the sink, he studied the sunken look of himself, eyes hollow from lack of sleep and hair mangled from fussing and fidgeting all day. This was the part where he apologized, begged, pleaded, or anything else that would set things back to rights. Only problem was he was fairly certain they were so shattered it wouldn’t work.

Billy stood at the living room window, calm, still and balanced in his weight. It was that strange contradictory thing about Billy that made him so infuriating, and so captivating, that vulnerable strength. Like a tree in the path of an oncoming avalanche.

“Bill.”

This time Billy didn’t dodge. Only a small tilt of his head indicated he’d heard.

“I… I fucked up and I’m sorry,” Dom started, “But... you’ve barely spoken to me in two days, and when you did it was to… to bite my head off and maybe I deserved it sometimes. But I wish… I wish you’d talk to me. You can tell me anything, Billy, you can… you don’t have to hide from me.”

Billy tipped his head down, looking at the street below, but said nothing.

It flustered Dom all the more that he was silent. “You never even had to come here. You could have just stayed in New Zealand where everything was perfect, and not do something stupid like fly out–“

“It wasn’t perfect, Dom,” Billy interrupted quietly without turning, “It never has been.”

“It never will be! “ Dom shot back, “You said so yourself that it’s not handed out to people. My god, if you don’t want to think people are meant to suffer, then why do you force yourself to? Why do you hold everything in until it explodes? I don’t know why you even thought that it would be better here, with me. And I don’t know what to do to make you happy. I don’t know how to fix this.” He sat on the sofa, pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, feeling ever like a pouting child. “I don’t know why you even came here.”

Billy remained at the window. He sighed, and a tiny quake shook the end of it. His fingernail scraped at the ice etched on the glass. “Because you asked me to.”

“I didn’t,” Dom grumbled, arguing semantics. “I called your number and the next thing I knew, you were on a plane. There was no asking involved.”

Billy’s face tilted up to the thick grey blanket of clouds. “You didn’t want me to come, then?”

Dom squeezed his eyes shut. _Stupid, stupid fucking idiot. Why do you push?_ There was nothing he wanted more than for Billy to stay, but he was damned if he was going to keep him like a songbird in a cage anymore. “I just… I can’t keep you if you want to leave, but… but at least give me a reason why.”

Billy remained silent at the window. It seemed like forever before he spoke, and Dom began believing maybe there didn’t have to be reason, that they were both so wrong for each other that being together was just as absurd as it had seemed on the boat.

“You were such a beautiful mess, Dom. More than me. So much more than I thought I was.” Billy stopped, and the nature of his voice turned to a sort of slow disbelief when it returned, “You came onto my boat, and into my lounge, and you looked at me. And I forgot to be afraid.”

Turning, his face was soft, almost timid. “You are so limitless, Dommeh. You’ve no idea how much you… _frighten me_ sometimes, but I… I came back to make it up to you and fix it because I’m too bloody old to run away.” He looked down at his hand, scratching delicately under the gauze, his voice falling nearly to nothing. “But then Sean was here, and you had to pay so much for this and it all just went so wrong, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Dom was utterly speechless. That wasn’t the answer he expected at all.

Billy gave a nervous chuff of laughter, trying to put his hands in his pockets before remembering the stitches and fidgeting uselessly, tugging at his hair. His eyes found Dom’s again, bright and liquid. “I don’t want to fight anymore.”

Dom swallowed nervously. “I don’t either.”

Billy took a tentative step forward. “I don’t want to leave.”

“I don’t want you to.”

Billy’s eyes closed, tense, mouth quivering before he got any sound. “Don’t… Dom, don’t ever, _ever_ think I’d raise my hand to you.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t push it right back?” Dom’s throat closed a little. “I never thought that.”

Billy’s eyes remained unsure and scared when he looked up. “You haven’t even slept in bed with me, since.”

Dom choked back a laugh. “Jesus, I just didn’t want to roll over on your hand, that’s all.”

Billy squeezed his eyes shut, quaking a little. It took a moment of horror before Dom realized Billy was not crying, but laughing. He unfolded himself and took Billy’s arm, pulling him over to sit.

Billy’s giggles tapered off, closer to Dom on the sofa than he’d voluntarily been in days, and looked out the windows with a deep breath in and out, as thought he’d held it all this time.

Dom turned to see Billy’s face, now beginning to relax, the cool gleam in his eyes like water over river stones, and his hair a shock of fire in the winter. He looked until he couldn’t hold back anymore, reached out to turn Billy’s face and bring their lips together, to slip his tongue just beneath the perfect little divot of his upper lip, and discover the warm, rich taste of sweetened coffee.

Billy made a sound in his throat as his own hand swept up, gauze sliding over Dom’s cheek and neck to pull him still closer. He opened, let Dom taste his fill of the coffee-sugar coating, and then took his turn, sweeping through Dom’s mouth, laying a claim that Dom could never resist, that still sent a shiver through him. It was always Billy that ended a kiss, only for want of air.

“Do you remember,” Billy murmured against his mouth, lips and foreheads still touching, “the first time you did that to me?”

“What’s that?”

“The first time you kissed me like that, when I wasn’t expecting it, Dom,” Billy said, “We talked about how this would never happen and then you pressed me against the wall and kissed me, and I would have hidden in your suitcase if I thought I could fit. You had me then.”

Dom broke a grin, “The way I remember it, you had me. On the floor with my trousers down, as it happened.”

Billy returned the smile, his fingers curling in the fabric of Dom’s shirt. “Aye, I did at that.”

“You always had to be so fucking persistent, Bills.”

“You were always so bloody stubborn, Dom.”

“It could never work out,” Dom joked, but then stiffened and dropped his eyes. Too many things had been taken the wrong way lately. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

Billy pulled back, but only a little, lifting his hand gently to Dom’s face and tracing his jaw. “You drive me _mad_ , Dominic.”

“Good mad or bad mad?” Dom asked, more than half-serious.

“Both,” Billy sighed, “Both at once. I just… I’m not used to this, Dom, I’m just set in my ways. So if I don’t… talk, it’s not because of you. I’m a coward. I know I am.”

Dom bit his lip. “You came to me, after it took me six months to call you. When I should have just asked you on the boat. I’m the coward.”

“We really fucked this up, didn’t we?” Billy said, grinning.

“I think we did a good job of it, yeah.” Dom felt his own smile fade. “I don’t know if we’ll ever get it right.”

“Then we’ll fuck it up and mend it and keeping going,” A little of the fierceness was back in Billy’s voice. “You and me.”

Dom closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to Billy’s, stunned that anyone would say such a thing to him, the perpetual fuck up, the one who drove everything and everyone into the ground until he smashed them into dust.

“Besides,” Billy arched a brow, “I’m spoilt now. Yachts and fancy New York flats. I don’t know if I could go back to the Metro Station lifestyle.”

“Bill of the Mole people,” Dom laughed, “I looked in the stations. I looked there first to find you.”

Billy pushed his grin against Dom’s. “Fucking Bean.”

“Great man, Bean.” Dom teased. ”Top-notch mate, that one.”

Billy sighed, his eyes darting over Dom’s shoulder, and Dom knew he was looking disdainfully at the patched raw plaster, not yet smoothed over. “I’ll not be your bad choice, Dominic. I’ll be better for you. I promise I will.”

Dom took Billy’s hand and kissed over the top of the gauze, away from where he knew the stitches to be. “How is it?” he asked.

“It hurts,” Billy muttered into Dom’s shoulder, his words muffled in linen.

“You’ve got a couple of pills left,” Dom said hesitantly.

“Checking up on me, hmm?” Billy glared as he shook his head. “They make me sleepy.”

Dom turned Billy’s hand over, tracing the lines of his palm, and lightly over the fingertips. “What if… you take a regular aspirin, and I’ll take you out for dinner, and then we’ll come back and go to bed early?”

“Sounds like thinly veiled bribery.”

“It was. Thin as tissue.” Dom nuzzled against the scratch of Billy’s cheek, “Say yes.”

Billy made a unconvinced face, “Bann Thai?”

“Dirty Pierre’s? You've never been there.”

“If your bribe is meant to work, I should get to choose,” Billy pouted.

“You don’t always get a choice, Boyd,” Dom grinned, pulling them both off the sofa, “You get the aspirin and I’ll get your coat.”

“Mad, Dominic,” Billy glared, but there was a sparkle with it.

“Hey,” Dom dropped all cheek, catching Billy’s arm as he began to turn and pulled him into a tight hug. This rift was not fixed, and Dom was willing to tiptoe as long as Billy needed him to, but he hoped it was at least patched and on its way to healing. Billy returned the embrace with a ferocity that took his breath and made his heart pound. “Are we okay?”

Billy kissed him gently, “Aye, we’re okay.”

Outside, the light and temperature had begun to fall, and the air was so crisp and still that sound seemed to echo. The shuffle of Dom’s coat as they walked, the hum of the streetlamps, and the squeak of leather as their gloved hands caught and wound between them, all were magnified beneath the honk of distant cars and the melee of the city.

“Look, Dommeh,” Billy said, tilting his pink-cheeked face upwards. “That bastard storm finally broke.”

Dom watched as five, then twenty, then a hundred snowflakes slowly began to fall, lighting on every surface without a sound. He grinned, catching one on his tongue.

“Tell me about that old man you saved,” Billy asked as they passed the coffee shop once again, stepping off the same curb to cross the street. “What did he say?”

Dom thought for a moment, shrugging a bit, “He said a lot of things. Lost his wife a few months ago to cancer. Talked about her, like… like she meant _everything_ to him. Almost like she was still there. He told me… well. He said a lot of things.”

Billy squeezed Dom’s gloved hand, “What, Dom?”

Dom chewed his lip and laughed quietly, watching his breath float away. “He said people fight to make up. He said flowers usually work.”

Billy threw him a crooked smile, walking for several steps before speaking again, quietly, “It wilted, else I would have... put it in a glass or something. I think I rolled over and squashed it.”

"I’m no good at the romance part, am I?” Dom blushed to his ears in the cold. “I’ll leave that to you and that old bloke, then. Forgot to ask his name. He seemed so… alone.” Dom wished he had asked, to look him up again sometime and be sure he was all right.

“When my parents died, for my dad, it was instant.” Billy spoke matter-of-factly, looking down at the snowy sidewalk as he walked. Dom held his breath, surprised at Billy’s offering up this sort of information after these last few days, the last few weeks.

“Mum lived for almost a week after. We went to the hospital to see her. They told us – the doctors – they said that she may never walk again, but she would live. They were ‘optimistic’. S’what they said.

“But when she woke, we had to tell her about Dad.” Billy stopped here for a long while, snowflakes lighting on his eyelashes and causing them to flutter. “She didn’t talk again after that morning. She stopped eating and… stopped everything. She just gave up. She couldn’t live without him.”

Though he blinked it back, Dom felt heat well up in his eyes. He nearly said he was sorry, but remembered the old man’s words about apologizing. Instead, he looped his arm around Billy’s waist, pulling him close and kissed his cheek as they finally came to the restaurant’s door. If that was the way Billy had learned to define love, then to receive it was worth fighting for.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People fight to make up.

_Saturday, October 7th_

Dom woke quite early with Billy curled limply around him, toasty warm and whistling against his cheek. Smiling, he pressed a kiss against the point of Billy’s hairline and drew him closer. Two nights of knowing this comfort was right in the next room had been even worse than the six long months without it. Today was a day to make up precious lost time.

Very carefully, he extricated himself from Billy’s grasp and left the bed, peeking around the curtains to see a city overwhelmed with bright white in the dawn. The tentative beginnings of winter last night had given way to huge, fluffy flakes covering everything in a heavy blanket.

As he pulled on a t-shirt and yoga pants, Billy drew Dom’s pillow into his grasp and wrapped himself around it, snuffling at the loss of the real thing. Dom grinned down at him, feeling the swell in his chest and left him to it. If he was very quiet and a little bit lucky, Billy would sleep long enough to be thoroughly spoiled on a chilly Saturday morning.

He was just at the point of punching down pastry dough and sprinkling flour onto the worktop when Billy emerged from the bedroom, sleep rumpled, scruffy and only in kecks.

“Kettle’s on,” Dom told him with a smile as he rolled out the pastry.

Billy was cheery as he poured himself tea, bumping arses with Dom in the small kitchenette when he delved into the fridge for the milk. He settled on the barstool across from where Dom worked, watching as he sipped the steaming cup. His hand was clean and unbandaged.

“What’s all this, then?” he queried after he’d had a sip or two.

Dom looked up cheekily, “I’m making sticky buns.”

And right on cue, Billy’s face squinched in disgust.

Dom dusted his hands with low laugh, and turned to the dig in the cupboard. “I love seeing that look on your face.”

“You love tormenting me. Making something you know I’ve no intention of eating. It’s going to cinnamon up the whole flat. I’ll need a gas mask in order to survive.”

“Billy, Billy, Billy,” Dom clicked his tongue, turning back. “You know, assumptions get a man in trouble more often…. These are Not-Cinnamon Buns.”

The squinch was still twitching under the surface. “Not cinnamon,” Billy parroted.

“Not not cinnamon,” Dom corrected. “Not-Cinnamon. Totally different thing.”

Billy’s right eyebrow rose in unsure curiosity. “How’s that?”

“Well, you’re assuming that I’m just making cinnamon buns and omitting the key ingredient. Which you and I both know is the cheap and dirty way out. S’ very boring, nothing but pastry and sugar.” Dom twisted off the tie to the package in his hand as he spoke, “And Bills, you know I don’t do anything halfway.”

A smile had squirmed its way through the squinch as Dom made his speech, and Billy shook his head in amusement. “All right, what are Not-Cinnamon Buns?”

Dom gave him a toothy grin and leaned the heels of his floury hands on the worktop. “Maybe you should come over here so I can explain in detail, hmm?”

Billy hesitated, his hands still playing on his mug. “No cinnamon?”

“Not a morsel.”

Billy slid off the barstool and rounded the worktop.

“These…” Dom held up the bag in his hand, “… are slivered almonds. You like almonds, don’t you?”

Dom took a pinch of the almonds from the bag and brought them to Billy’s lips, watching delicate little teeth take them from his fingers. Billy happily crunched the slivers and nodded. Taking a handful, Dom sprinkled the almond slivers over his rectangle of dough.

Putting that package down, Dom reached for a smaller plastic bag. “And this is candied ginger.”

Billy’s eyebrows went up in delight. Billy liked ginger, Dom knew, from the dishes he ordered when they had Thai, and Billy liked candy in most shapes or forms, so Dom had put two and two together fairly simply. Dom held one small, soft chip out for Billy.

“Mmm!” Billy hummed around his mouthful, reaching for the bag.

“Ah-ah,” Dom corrected, taking a small handful from the bag and pulling a clean knife from the block. “In moderation, Bills. This stuff is a dollar per ounce, I’ll have you know. We chop it finely, like so.”

Dom minced the soft sweet and sifted it carefully over the almonds on the dough, being sure to cover corner-to-corner and swatting Billy’s rogue fingers as they grabbed for stray bits.

“What’s next?” Billy asked, licking the tip of his thumb.

Dom pulled a plastic bottle from the cupboard. “Next is orange zest.” He shook a small pile of the dried zest into his palm, and repeated his motions.

“It’d be better fresh,” Billy complained, still stealing ginger crumbs.

“Oh,” Dom paused and blinked at him. “Did you want to walk down to the grocery this fine morning in your altogether and get us a fresh orange to zest, Billy? I can wait.”

Billy’s eyes turned to the windows beyond the kitchen in the living room, where snow had piled several inches on the sills. The fireplace between both windows was crackling merrily to keep the cold at bay. He grinned, pressing half his body against Dom’s back when he turned to sift the zest over the pastry. An arm snaked around to pinch ginger, almond and zest together and sweep it into his mouth before Dom could stop him. “Dried seasonings have their merits, Viggo used to say.”

“Did he?” Dom turned around, grabbing Billy’s waist with powdery hands to pull him closer. “What else did he say?”

“Lots of things,” Billy leaned in for a quick, ginger-flavoured kiss. “He cooked with cinnamon too much.”

Dom chuckled, “Clearly he was stifled in his range of spices. But your Not-Cinnamon Buns aren’t ready yet. There’s one more yummy ingredient before it goes in the oven.”

“Mmm,” Billy was warm, cuddly, nearly naked and seemed rather more intent on eating Dom for breakfast just now. “Yummy?”

Dom reached around him to the cupboard one more time. “Yummy. Sweet. And brings an all important element to the sticky bun.” He pushed Billy and his hungry teeth back to show him the tall, slender jar of orange blossom honey.

“Ah,” Billy grinned. “Very important.”

Dom turned back around to uncap the honey, using a spoon to drizzle it all over the dough, while Billy did his damnedest to distract him from his task from behind. By the time Dom was done, he’d fumbled the spoon too deep into the jar more than once, and as a result got the spoon handle, his fingers, the lid and the worktop more than a little sticky.

Billy bit the shell of his ear around a laugh, “Viggo said a dirty kitchen makes you wonder about the cook.”

“Viggo’s kitchen was fucking filthy, then. Bill…” Dom’s voice dropped an octave when Billy grabbed his hand to suck honey from his fingers. “Your cinnamon buns are going to be done by dinnertime at this rate, _Jesus_.”

“Not-Cinnamon.”

“Right, whatever.”

“ _No cinnamon_ ,” he growled against Dom’s neck, pressing his hips forward against Dom’s pajama-clad rear.

“None,” Dom gasped and pushed back.

“Excellent! Can’t wait.” And stopping his assault entirely, Billy moved away to refill his mug of tea. He settled at the bar once again, sipping his mug and flicking through the morning paper with an air of nonchalance.

Recovering, Dom wiped his hands on a damp cloth and carefully began rolling up the dough, eying Billy from under his eyebrows. “You’re truly cruel sometimes. I can’t stand you, Bills.”

“Mmm. I found myself this morning alone in a freezing bed. Again. Was very fracturing to my routine, Dominic, so I think I’ll wait until I taste one of your Not-Cinnamon Buns to see how I feel after.”

Dom sliced the rolls and was placing them on a buttered pan to slide into the oven. “Oh, we’ll be even, after you taste one of these.”

“You’re sure on that?” Billy cocked a brow.

“Positive.” Setting the timer, Dom rounded the counter top and pulled the newspaper away, holding it out of Billy’s reach before tossing it to the floor and sidling in close for a kiss.

Billy tasted of tea and sticky bun filling, sweet and spicy and altogether delicious. He had gooseflesh peppered over his naked arms and thighs, though it was cozy in the flat. Abandoning the uninterested act, Billy turned on the stool to let Dom stand between his knees, pressing as close as he could to chase the sweet taste deeper into Billy’s mouth.

Dom’s mobile rang, vibrating along the top of the desk across the living room. As he began to pull back, Billy gave a very disagreeing noise into his mouth and fisted his hands in Dom’s t-shirt.

“Might be Sean,” Dom murmured, still kissing.

"Might be,” Billy dismissed, locking an ankle around Dom’s knee to keep him there.

“Might be work,” Dom tried again.

“Exactly.”

The phone continued to go off shrilly. Dom was always on call on weekends, a fact that Billy knew. He let go a sigh as Dom pulled fully away and went to check the ID.

He glanced back at Billy with a grin before answering. “Hello, Mum.”

Billy’s face turned from sour discontent to abject curiosity, and Dom chuckled.

Meanwhile, there was a pause on the line. “Well, that’s… Is this the Dom I birthed all those years ago?”

“The same one, I think. Why?”

“Oh. Just… I don’t remember the last time you sounded cheerful when I’ve called.”

Dom slid into the desk chair facing Billy, who remained at the counter, having turned on his stool as he sipped his tea and listened with interest. “I was usually working when you called me, Mum.”

“That’s what I thought,” she answered, “And today is different?”

“Not working today,” Dom said.

“How has it been lately? I tried to call last week but… There was something on the international news… terrible, really, a little girl died, and it was New York, and I thought….”

Dom looked away from Billy’s eyes. That case was not something he really wanted to recount, and Christ, had it gone international? But his hesitation was too long, and his mother sighed down the line, “Oh, Dommie. It _was_ yours, then? You know, this is exactly why I worry–“

“Mum, it’s not…I’m fine. We’re dealing with it, all right? There was nothing we could do anyway, and… I’m fine. You worry too much.” He felt like he was lying through his teeth.

“I’m your mother, it’s my job,” she countered. “I just want my boys happy, that’s all.”

“I am happy. Sean’s great too,” Dom reassured her as he always had to. He grasped for happier subjects. “Did I tell you Chris is having another baby?”

“Goodness, really? How many is that?”

“Three. They’re hoping for a boy, but it’ll be a bit before they’ll know. It’s not due until summer.”

His mother laughed. “Well, that’s good news. Closest I have to my own grandkids, hmm?”

“Mum,” Dom warned gently, rolling his eyes. “There’s still Mattie, you know he’s the ladykiller. I can’t vouch for any little deposits he may have made, though.”

“Nor can I, that’s what scares me. He’s not called me in months, the rogue,” she laughed to cover her worry. “What else, Dom? What about you, hmm? Are you… are you seeing anyone?”

Dom flicked his eyes back to Billy, smiling before he answered. “Actually, yes.” _Seeing him now. Very close to naked._

“Ah.” The acknowledgement was short and followed with a deep breath. “So, tell me about him, then.”

Dom warmed through. For a subject that was always, _always_ awkward (and had previously always had a negative answer), she was putting forth an effort he hadn’t really expected. “He’s…. erm.” This was suddenly very difficult with Billy’s soft, hot eyes watching, and Billy wasn’t making any effort to make himself scarce. “He’s great. Really, Mum.”

“Well, since when are you ever so shy? Give me details. What’s his name?” she prodded.

“Billy,” Dom knew he was blushing to his ears while Billy arched a brow at him, “His name is Billy. I met him on holiday, my New Zealand trip.”

“That… Dom that was _months_ ago! You’ve not mentioned–“

“I said I met him there,” he interrupted. “He hasn’t been _here_ very long. He was on the ship. He’s a singer and he’s…. Do you want to talk to him?”

Billy’s eyes went round and his mouth went very small, looking a bit like a scared cartoon character. Dom snorted behind a fist while his mum fumbled just as much on the other end of the line. “I… No. Is he there? No, that’s…” she stuttered, “Dom, if I called at a bad time…”

“Well, he lives here,” Dom grinned fiendishly, “Any time could be bad.”

“You’re… you’re living together?” she sounded nervous. “Dom, you know I just want you to be sure about this–“

“I’m sure, Mum,” Dom interrupted firmly, eyes fastened to Billy’s. “I spent far too long convincing myself otherwise.”

Recovering, Billy slid from his stool and came close, leaning against the desk front and as he met Dom’s eyes with an adoration Dom hadn’t seen in days. He reached down and tugged lightly on the greenstone around Dom’s neck.

“Well,” his mother paused, then went on, “The reason I ask is that I’d like it if you could come home for Christmas this year. It’s been so very long since your father and I have seen you. If I can find the little drifter, I expect to have Mattie home too. Billy’s invited as well, unless he’s spending it with his family.”

Dom’s hand reached to squeeze Billy’s, hesitance in his voice, “What about Dad?”

“Yes, what about Dad?” she repeated with an airy huff, “I can’t say I haven’t talked to him, Dominic, and he’s as much of a stump in the ground as ever. If he can’t be told, he’ll damn well have to look for himself and see you’re still his son.”

Dom took a deep breath, the smell of the sticky buns and snow and Billy strong in the air, Billy’s fingers warm and real in his grip. His father had walked out of the room when he’d told him he was gay. Ever since that day, he’d never looked directly at him, never even deigned to speak to Dom unless directly spoken to, grasping at any subject but that one. It was Dom’s last failure, the final disappointment in a very long string. Bringing Billy home would light one hell of a fire. And yet, Dom had had that match ready for years.

“What do you say, Dom? Christmas at home?” she asked again.

“I’ll… yeah, I’ll see.”

“Good. Let me know then, hmm? I’ve got to ring off, we’re having one of your father’s colleagues for supper and I’ve got to get this chicken in the oven. Love you.”

“Love you, Mum. Bye.”

Tossing the phone back on the desk, Dom pulled on Billy until he was forced to crawl into Dom’s lap on the precariously rotating desk chair, setting them both giggling like loons.

“What was all that about, hmm?” Billy asked, wrapping his arms around Dom’s neck for balance.

“Just my mum being a worry-wart.” Dom tucked his hands around Billy’s arse to keep him from slipping and grinned. “Now you know where I get it from.”

“I suspected as much. And your dad?”

“What about him?” Dom stretched his neck to reach lips. It seemed as good a time as any to get back to the kissing.

Billy deliberately leaned out of reach with an inquiring tilt to his head. “What about him? That’s what you asked.”

Dom gave a heavy exhale, looking Billy over and drawing circles over his hips with his thumbs. “You know that trip we were planning?”

Billy grinned, “So we _were_ planning one, then?”

“Shut it,” Dom grumbled. “How would you feel about going home for Christmas, Bills? Or close, anyway.”

“Are we up to meeting the parents now?” Billy giggled, still sparkling with mischief.

“We’re invited, if you want to go. It looks like the London suburbs are our big getaway.”

“Not Manchester?”

“Dad teaches at a Catholic school in Hounslow now.” Dom winced internally as soon as he said it. He’d brought the subject right back round to his dad again, and figured he may as well get it out there. “We… we don’t get on anymore, me and him. I suppose I ought to warn you of that before you have to meet him. That’s assuming he’ll shake your hand at all.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s done that, Dom. I’m not afraid of meeting your parents.”

Dom took in that simple confidence that he loved about Billy. Pulling him bodily closer and murmuring into his bare chest. “How is it you’re afraid of nothing?” he muttered against skin.

Billy’s face was thoughtful when Dom looked up, and he pressed his fingers to Dom’s cheek and kissed him more gently than he had all morning.

“I just…” Dom sighed and brought his own hand to Billy’s neck, keeping their foreheads together. “I want them to like you, Bills. I want you to feel welcome, and I… I don’t want to mess up again.”

“Dommeh, it’s not on you to make them like me.”

“I know, but I… I don’t want you to feel like you’re not wanted. And my dad is not going to be a picnic about me bringing a bloke home.”

“I don’t care about that,” Billy slid his fingers to Dom’s mouth, his words suddenly slow and quiet. “He can’t make me love you any less.”

Dom’s heart clenched in happiness. Billy was not afraid of the one man who always made Dom feel like a failure. He pulled Billy down to kiss properly, ignoring the groan of the chair as he licked the ginger taste from Billy’s teeth. Right. Making up for lost time.

The egg timer going off made him jump and Billy tilted neatly backwards, sprawling onto the carpet with a yelp.

“Shite, I haven’t even made the frosting yet.” Dom stepped over him with a giggle, running to the kitchen.

Billy remained flat on the carpet for a few moments, catching his breath. “Dominic, these Not-Cinnamon Rolls better be fucking exquisite, to make up for waking up cold and then _dropping me_ without so much as a warning, you great clumsy pillock.”

“They will be, just as soon as they’re slathered with cream cheese frosting with just a hint of orange extract.”

Billy scrambled up off the floor and was in the kitchen before Dom had all the ingredients laid out of the worktop.

“Tell me about them,” Billy asked, once Dom had the hand mixer out and slapped Billy’s fingers away from the cooling rolls. “Your mum and dad.”

Dom eyed him sidelong, and Billy held his gaze with his chin up. He knew he was pressing an old bruise, but Billy had volunteered the information about his parents when Dom hadn’t even asked.

“What do you want to know?”

Billy shrugged, “I don’t know. Why does your mum worry so much?”

Dom mixed the contents of the bowl briskly, answering without looking up. “When I first came here, I was still in school, graduate school here in the city. You remember, I said I lived in a hole in the wall?”

Billy nodded and Dom continued, “That was the only time Mum visited me here, at that one room flat in a not-so-good neighborhood. She was terrified. She still hasn’t seen this place though. I think she’d feel better if she did.”

“What does she do?”

“She does medical notation at home, now, or she did. She wanted to be a nurse, but my grandpa got sick and she ended up quitting nursing school to take care of him. My dad got her through when Grandpa died, and then she had Mattie, and then me.” Dom paused, reminiscing for a moment. “I guess she got what she wanted, it just didn’t work out they way she thought.”

“Funny how it does that,” Billy said.

Dom met his eyes. It occurred to him that he’d not seen his mother since that short visit years ago, and even longer for his dad and brother, who hadn’t come. He put the hand mixer in the sink and turned to Billy. “Do you really want to go for Christmas?”

Billy shrugged, eyeing the unfrosted pastries until Dom caught his hands and drew him closer. “Hey. Talk to me. If you want to do something else, then we’ll do something else. Because a holiday with my dad isn’t going to be a relaxing getaway, Bills, and… and I don’t know what I’d be able to afford afterwards,” he finished quietly, wincing a bit.

“You don’t know that,” Billy said, taking out a spoon and began slathering the warm rolls with frosting himself. “I said I don’t mind. Been long time since I’ve been back to London.” He tapped the back of the frosty spoon on Dom’s chin. “And I will be helping to pay, Dominic,” he warned, darting quickly in to lick the frosting from the cleft of Dom’s chin before he returned to the buns.

Dom let Billy do the last of work, watching over his shoulder. He was so confident about it. He circled his arms round Billy’s waist, asking quietly, hopefully, “Maybe we could have Christmas there, and then we could leave early… take a train up north?”

Billy paused, and Dom dropped a kiss to his naked shoulder. “Maybe just a day or two, hmm? Just us?”

Billy’s hands moved again, frosting the last three rolls quickly. “You should spend time with your family, Dom.”

 _So should you._ Dom’s mind formed the words, but he held them back. Outside the snow was crawling up the windowpanes, draping them into their own world in this flat and shutting out everything else. The idea was out there, at least. _Don’t push. Not now._

Instead, he reached around for the nearest Not-Cinnamon Bun and lifted it to Billy’s mouth, watching him bite into it and then sink back into Dom as he chewed. Dom grinned at a nicer thought, and mouthed at Billy’s neck below his ear and purred, “Am I forgiven?”

“Eating now. I’ll get back to you on that.” Billy took the bun from Dom and took another big sticky bite of it. “Mmm.”

Dom rumbled a laugh and took Billy’s left hand carefully to look it over. The swelling was gone and the bruises were fading, and the cut seemed to be knitting well beneath the stitches.

Dropping it, he could not help but mouth along Billy’s warm, bare shoulders. Billy had distracted him all the while he was making this treat; it was only fair. He dipped a finger in the remaining frosting in the bowl and swiped it in a nice long trail down Billy’s neck and shoulder.

“Oi,” Billy wriggled, speaking around a mouthful, “Didn’t your mother teach you not to play with your food?”

Dom followed the trail back up with his tongue and applied his teeth to the muscle until Billy turned to face him, having finished his sticky bun.

“My mum taught me to clean up my messes very… thoroughly…” he punctuated his words by grabbing Billy’s hand and sucking gingery-sweet stickiness from Billy’s fingers, “…when I cook them up.”

“What an astute woman,” Billy’s voice dropped low and his eyes darkened.

“Mmm-hm.” Dom shifted the frosting bowl to the sink, without letting Billy’s thumb slip from his mouth.

A smudge of frosting found its way to Billy’s left nipple and Dom grinned wickedly, “Whoops.”

Billy down at his frosted nipple and then sternly back, “You’d best do as your mother tells you, then.”

“See, I thought so too,” Dom agreed, crowding Billy back against the countertop and dipping down to suck the frosting off of the chilly hard nub.

“Dom,” Billy’s voice wavered a little under Dom’s mouth, “You know, I’ve not had a proper shower since… since. I’m pretty… unh… pretty messy, myself.”

“I wanna mess you up some more, Bills,” Dom growled, “Mess you up and get you clean again afterwards.”

He had Billy stumbling sightlessly toward the bedroom before any more frosting made its way into the mix, kissing and being kissed, bumping into raw plaster and doorframe and mattress. Last night had erred on the side of caution, just kisses and cuddling before they both fell sleep, exhausted from the tension finally unwinding. Now, Dom wanted Billy so badly he had to force himself not to rush.

Billy dropped to the bed and elbowed his way back to the pillows, and Dom followed, breathing a sigh of relief to have this again, Billy beneath him and eagerly pulling him down. He pressed up into the kiss, licking the flavour of Not-Cinnamon through Dom’s mouth until Dom couldn’t taste it anymore, could only taste Billy, before making his way over his chin and slowly down.

He sucked and teased skin and nipples, lapping any trace of sugar away, sweeping his fingers lightly over Billy’s ticklish sides until he shivered, though he was no longer cold.

“Take this off, Dommeh,” Billy tugged at Dom’s t-shirt, yanking it swiftly over his head and going for the tie of his yoga bottoms just as Dom went for his boxers. Laughing, they pulled apart long enough to strip, but Billy was faster than Dom and pinned him down with his hands, eyes and a very feral smile before the pants made it all the way off.

“Think I should do some cleaning up myself.”

Billy’s mouth surrounded Dom’s cock, his right hand holding and working the base, bringing Dom to full hardness in just a few pulls.

Dom groaned loudly, pulling his legs up and wide, tethered as he still was at the ankles by his pants. “Yeah, that’s… oh _fuck_.”

Billy pulled off his cock only to move down and take one of Dom’s balls into his mouth, rolling it round and sucking hard. He pushed it out and repeated with the other, licked a hot stripe back up to catch a gob of precum from the head, and then nuzzled well below Dom’s sac, mouthing and sucking the taut skin just behind.

“Oh god, that’s really good,” Dom trembled, pressing himself up for Billy’s mouth. “Really fucking good.”

“What do you want, Dommeh? Anything you want,” Billy mumbled into flesh, his breath hot and rapid.

“Jesusfuck, you have to even ask?” Dom whimpered, squirming beneath Billy’s wicked tongue. “Fuck me. Christ, that’s… Get inside me.”

Billy wriggled where he was between Dom’s thighs, his stubble driving another wild noise from Dom’s clenched teeth as it scraped against ultra-sensitive skin. He laved his fingers along with Dom’s opening, working them inside.

Dom slapped his hand against the bedside drawer, unable to reach or concentrate hard enough while Billy twisted two fingers in and up. “Nngh. _Oh_ Stopstopstop. Bill, stop it, god…”

Billy sat back to pull Dom’s sweat bottoms the rest of the way off, and Dom had him caught distracted and wrestled him right over, rearranging their places and throwing the clothes and comforter off the side of the bed.

Straddling Billy, he leaned over to grab the lube and condoms from the drawer. Billy mouthed over his collarbone while he stretched, driving Dom to come back to his position without losing the touch of those lips, to do the same to Billy’s arms, his beautiful strong shoulders before he kissed his way back to Billy’s mouth. He opened his own wide, tasting himself on Billy’s tongue. Only Billy had ever driven Dom over this edge, made him feel this need, not because it was sex and sex felt fucking fabulous, but because he needed to get as close as he could. He felt like he could kiss Billy forever, if Billy’s hands didn’t drive him insane first, over his back and thighs and everywhere before they settled against his rear, both sets of fingers running swiftly down the saliva damp cleft before Dom caught the left one.

“Watch your hand, Bills,” he muttered lowly. Scooting Billy up and back to lean against the pillows, he gently took that hand and with a grin, wrapped the fingers around one of the cherry wood spindles of the headboard.

“Oh, I see how it is,” Billy chuckled and mirrored the move with his other hand on the opposite side, prone underneath Dom’s electric gaze. “Don’t think it’s going to last, though.”

“No? Let’s test your Scottish resolve, then.”

With the condom packet held between his teeth, Dom stroked Billy’s prick a few times, indulging in seeing his chest redden and his Adam’s apple bob with the anticipation. Pushing the tip of his thumb up just beneath the slit until a little bead welled up there, he pinched the packet between his knuckles and teeth to rip it, licked the drop away from his thumb and swiftly had the condom rolled down.

Billy’s fingers clutched the spindles tightly.

Reaching for the lube, Dom poured a bit in his hand and watched Billy’s eyelids fall to half-mast as he reached behind himself.

“Christ Dominic, look at you,” Billy groaned, hands coming off of the bed frame to Dom’s thighs again, “So fucking gorgeous. So beautiful like this.”

Dom gave a lazy smile, moistening his lips as he tilted his head back, riding his own fingers. “That was about thirty seconds, Bill. Well done,” he teased.

“Fuck my resolve,” Billy breathed, testing the give and flex of Dom’s hips, sliding his hands up over Dom’s tight ab muscles as he moved, “If you ever tie me up, I’d tear the bed apart to get my hands on you.”

Dom laughed and groaned as he pushed down on a third finger. Out of all the partners he’d ever had, only Billy had ever made him feel sexy.

Billy’s right hand encircled his cock, circling his palm over the thick damp head, ratcheting up the need. Dom closed his eyes and quivered from the compounded pleasure. He was rock hard from Billy’s silly sexy antics all morning, not to mention having gone days without even a wank to tide him over. He didn’t think he’d last very long, but he didn’t much care anymore.

“Dommeh,” Billy’s entreating voice and the cool sting of the lube bottle against his rigid flesh brought him back. He took it, drizzling more over Billy and himself before capping and tossing it, heedless that it slid off and fell to the floor. Shuffling his knees against Billy’s ribs, he sank down with a loud, bitten off moan onto Billy’s upheld cock, not stopping the slow descent until he sat nestled in the bowl of his pelvis.

Billy bent his knees to cradle Dom in place, his arms coming up to support his back and surround him, pulling him down to lick deeply into his mouth. The sensation of it, surrounded on all sides was exactly was Dom needed, and it overwhelmed him completely.

“Billy, oh god, unh, yeah…” he moaned and grunted around Billy’s kisses, raising himself on shaky thighs before plunging back as far as he could, twisting his hips to draw it out. He rose and fell on Billy’s cock, thrusts deliberately slower than both of their heaving breaths. His own cock rubbed wetly between their sweaty bellies, the texture of Billy’s hair rubbing rhythmically against the swollen head, enough to draw the sensation just this side of pain.

When Billy wriggled his right hand between to press the whole shaft even more firmly against the rasp, Dom could only throw back his head and yell and fuck himself down into Billy’s lap hard, harder, washes of heat shuddering through him. He could feel Billy’s mouth making encouraging words and grunts against his neck, could feel himself coming against the palm of Billy’s hand and belly, hot hard gushes again and again as his body clamped and pulsed around Billy’s cock.

He gasped for breath, felt the cool air of the flat raise gooseflesh over his own sweat-covered skin. He could feel, though Billy still held him tightly, the press and pull of Billy’s hips beneath his, still moving inside him.

“Billy,” he whispered, kissing his mouth, face and nose, to see him tensed and working, driving towards his end, words dying in his mouth as Dom licked them away. He swiveled his hips and felt Billy’s whole body jump beneath his.

“Jesus, Dom, oh yeah, yeah, yeah…”

“Billy, look at me,” Dom said, pushing him down on his back so he could plant his knees and fuck himself down, grinding as deep as he could let Billy in.

Billy writhed, pressing his hips up before his squeezed-shut eyes opened, latching watery on Dom. “Christ Dominic, you’re so fucking good to me… _oh no_.“ Dom rose nearly to the tip before pushing all the way back down onto him.

“Oh I’m gonna come Dom, I’m gonna….”

“Inside me,” Dom growled into Billy’s jaw, wanting very suddenly to be reckless, to be even closer than this, to rip the condom off so he could feel it. “Mine.”

Billy came, hands gripping Dom’s shoulder and hip hard as he drove in and held, to where Dom nearly thought he could feel the rushing heat of it, and then collapsed, boneless to the sweaty sheets.

“Jesus, Dommeh,” Billy groaned hoarsely after several minutes of heavy breathing and flung his arms above his head. “F’you wanted to get me paralytic, I think you managed it.”

“Mmm.” Dom rubbed his nose against Billy’s sweaty shoulder. “Was really nice.”

“Aye, it was.” Billy brought one arm down and squeezed Dom to him tightly. “I missed you more in two nights, than… than….”

Dom pushed himself up, letting Billy slip from his body and kissed him slowly. “Let’s not ever fight again.”

Billy grinned and then made a face, reaching down to rid himself of the condom. “I dunno, the making up part has its merits.”

“Not-Cinnamon buns.”

“Aye.”

Dom shifted to the side and wiped Billy’s belly up with a sheet, before stretching out beside him. “And laundry days.”

“That too.” Billy turned and propped his head on his elbow to look at him. “I do love you, Dommeh. Even… even when you piss me off. So strange.”

“How is it strange?” Dom whispered.

Billy shrugged, but said nothing, tracing a finger over Dom’s collarbones. His fingertips stopped over the almost imperceptible way the left arch of bone was slightly bigger than the right, eyes quirking up to ask.

“Broke it. I was seven,” Dom told him, pulling his elbow behind his back and altering line of muscle there.

“How?”

“Climbing trees,” Dom answered, a smile curling his lips again, “Falling out of one.”

Billy met his eyes again, both of them feeling the rush of a shared memory. “No one there to catch you?”

“Actually, Mattie was there, and the bastard just laughed,” Dom grinned.

Billy leaned down to apply his mouth to the spot, sucking and soothing with his tongue before pulling back and shaking his head, unsettled. “There is still so much I don’t know about you.”

 _Likewise_ , Dom thought, “Can we learn each other, Bills? We have time, this time around.”

Green eyes darted between his. What Dom saw there was so odd, so contradictory to everything he thought he knew about Billy. It was fear. There was something about Dom that scared him, remembering his words from yesterday.

“You have an overbite,” Dom tried a different direction, eyeing the little divot above Billy’s mouth.

Billy blinked for a second, then brightened as he remembered. “Your jaw is crooked.”

“We’re flawed, Bill,” Dom put a finger to Billy’s lips before he could speak and finished it himself, “And I love you anyway.”

“Dommeh, I…” Billy sighed as his brows gathered again. “I’m sorr-“

“No Bills,” Dom’s fingers pressed again over his mouth. “No more sorry's. We’ve both said it. It’s enough. Okay?”

Billy blinked at him slowly, and then kissed the fingers on his lips, reaching up to hold them there. But the little knot between his brows remained with the faraway look behind his eyes.

“Anyway, if you… if you ever want to talk about anything, not now obviously, but… whenever.” Dominic chewed his lip. “Whenever means next week or next year or ten years from now too, so–”

Billy pulled him down by the neck and kissed him soundly, his fingers tugging at the hair of his nape. Dom reckoned it was as good a way as any to shut him the hell up. Was really rather effective, actually, until Billy needed to breathe.

“I mean, take a look at these ears, right? They’re massive. Like intelligence satellites, yeah?”

Billy giggled, tugging on one appendage affectionately. “I get it, Dom. I can’t stand you, but I get it.”

“I mean it,” Dom said seriously.

Billy’s stomach growled loudly, and he chuckled. “I believe I may need another Not-Cinnamon bun.”

“I think you need a shower and a shave, first.” Dom patted Billy’s belly. “You’re a bit ripe, mate.”

Billy looked at his stitches. “I can’t really shower, and I don’t know if I can hold the razor right on that side, either.”

Dom looked him over, grinning slowly. Now there was something he’d always wanted to try. “You can’t, but I can.”

Billy looked doubtful, yet curious.

“C’mon, we’ll get you a nice steamy bath, and a shave and foot rub…”

“And a Not-Cinnamon bun.”

Dom nuzzled into his neck. “Let me take care of you, Bills. Then we’ll come back to bed and eat and make a mess again.”

Billy giggled and sighed and stretched for Dom’s mouth. “This is definitely a Naked Day.”

“Damn right.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of horses, friends, grudges and breaking points.

_Wednesday, October 11th_

“You’re sure it’s all right to just drop in like this?” Billy asked warily as their cab drove away through a copse of naked silver trees and paddocks lined with white fences. “I don’t think Sean will be happy to see me.”

Treading carefully between patches of mud and ice in the stable yard, Dom looked back at him, watching Billy rubbing the pad of his thumb over the new scar and the remainder of scab. “Relax, hmm? We’re just going to watch Allie’s riding lesson, nothing we haven’t done before.”

“ _I_ haven’t done it before,” Billy retorted.

Instead of going back to the astringent hospital atmosphere of Mount Sinai, Dom had taken Billy to his own doctor in upper Manhattan to have the stitches removed. It was early, but the wound was clean and closed, and Billy was more than happy for it. From there it was only a short cab ride to the stables where Allie’s riding lessons took place every Wednesday evening.

Stopping to let Billy catch up, Dom snugged Billy’s scarf higher around his neck and smoothed the lapels of the woolen coat. “Look, Sean’s just a perpetual four-year-old about shit like this. He’ll probably just sulk and not look at you at all. And besides, Allie adores you, and she’s got him wrapped around her pinky. He’ll come around.”

Billy’s lips turned up, looking unsure but appeased, cheeks and nose peachy in the cool sunset and a knit hat pulled over the tips of his ears.

Inside the dim doorway of the large red barn, the air rose strongly of horse, sweet grain and oiled leather, a scent that even in the brisk cold snap felt warm as it swirled around them. Dom heard Billy inhale it as well and smiled. It was something he’d always liked about this place, something that reminded him of countryside inns and childhood vacations.

The barn was quiet as they walked along the stalls, only sounds of the animals chewing their hay and swishing their tails. Dom looked at Billy sidelong and asked cheekily, “Are you minding your arse?”

“Eh?”

“Remember? You said once that you got bit in the arse by a horse,” Dom chuckled.

Billy looked confused, but shrugged and quirked a brow, “Oh. Aye. You’d best keep an eye on it for me, then.”

“Always,” Dom grinned lecherously at the arse in question, covered as it was by the bottom of Billy’s navy coat.

At the end of the long aisle, they came to the indoor arena, where several children guided their horses around the wall while each took a turn at the teacher’s instruction. They found Sean seated on the benches by the walls where a few other parents watched. Sliding in beside him, Dom waving back at Allie when she saw him. Sean nodded to Dom, but ignored Billy’s hello and stared resolutely ahead.

Ten minutes later the lesson ended, and Allie reined her big chestnut to a stop before them, looking tremendously proud of herself in her beribboned helmet, knee boots and a puffy pink jacket.

“Daddy, Uncle Dommie, I did a flying lead change, did you see it?” she babbled excitedly as Sean helped her slide down from the big horse, “Merrylegs never did it for me ‘cause he’s ornery, but they let me ride Goose today and he did it just like I asked him!”

“That’s fantastic, love,” Dom indulged her, not a clue what a flying lead change even was, “We’ll have you riding in the Olympics before your tenth birthday.”

“Billy, did you see me?” she asked, taking Billy’s hand and insisting that she lead the animal back out to his stall herself, though Sean walked behind her holding fast to the saddle behind as though the creature would bolt.

“I did, lass. Look at you, riding such a big fine horse so well. That takes a strong rider, that does.” Billy told her, careful to keep his scarred left hand from her view.

Allie glowed under the praise as Sean tied the horse to the peg out of her reach outside of its loosebox. “I liked it. I’ve never ridden Goose before, and he’s so big compared to Merrylegs. He’s that fat grey pony behind you in that stall, but they said he hurt his foot on the ice, so they let me ride Goose this time. He used to even be a racehorse once, but he’s real old now.” She patted the horse on the shoulder.

Before Dom knew it, Billy had taken the halter from Sean and set about removing the horse’s bridle – a complicated arrangement of buckles and straps that confounded most people, Dom included – as though he’d done it before. It earned him an odd, tight look from Sean as well, who glared at Billy before circling around to remove the saddle.

“Well, racehorses only race when they’re very young, but they live a long time,” Billy was telling Allie, “They’ve got to have jobs afterwards right? And he does a good job of it, don’t you, old man, teaching kids to ride.” The horse blinked sleepily and wuffled, dropping his head into Billy’s capable hands.

“He likes you!” Allie beamed at him, delighted. “Do you like horses too? They’re my very favorite.”

“Aye,” Billy smiled as he neatly gathered up the bridle and reins, leaning down to her. “Maybe he can tell I’ve worked with his lot before, hmm? Back when we were both young.”

“Really?”

Sean stepped between his daughter and Billy, purposely breaking their conversation and grabbing Billy’s sleeve as he past. “I’ll show you where that goes, Bill.”

Dom had watched this whole exchange with amusement and curiosity, but now he could see Sean gearing up as he pulled Billy to the tack room. Billy glanced back with a reassuring smile. Everything about this made Dom want to run after them, but he couldn’t leave Allie alone with a huge horse. All he could do was stand there patting the animal and watch the door shut behind them.

Swallowing, he went with the only available distraction. “I suppose you’re to groom him now?” he asked her.

“Yes.” Allie pulled up a stool with a heavy brush and got to work. She could not reach every bit of the beast whose back was at Dom’s eye level, but he’d come to lessons often enough to step into Sean’s role. He took up another brush and helped get to the high parts of the horse’s sweaty back where the saddle had been.

“I didn’t know Billy liked horses, Uncle Dom,” Allie said to him. “Can he come to all my lessons?”

Dom pasted a smile on his face, glancing back down the long aisle to tack room door. “I don’t know, sweetheart. You know grown ups are sometimes busy. But he might come sometimes with me.”

“Does he work with horses somewhere else?” she asked. “He said he did.”

Dom didn’t know the answer to this question, and hesitated long enough that Allie looked up expectantly as she moved her stool over and climbed back up to continue brushing the next section.

“I think…I think maybe he meant a long time ago,” he tried, “But not anymore.”

“Why not?”

Dom didn’t know the answer to that either. He sighed, “There could be lots of reasons, Allie, but I don’t know. Billy and I, we… we haven’t been friends for very long.”

“You’re friends with Daddy since forever, though.”

Dom smiled, brushing a big shoulder. “It’s a long time, yes. You were still a baby when I met you and him and your mum, so you probably don’t remember.”

Allie brushed with steady concentration, as though she was trying to recall a moment when she didn’t know him.

“Will you be friends forever?”

“What?”

“With Daddy? And with Billy? And me?”

 _Jesus_. Dom watched a girl in her early teens carry a saddle to the tack room door, open it and go in. _Get back out here, you two_. “I hope so, love.”

Allie moved her stool again and brushed, quiet and serious for a minute. “I had friend at riding camp last summer, and we were the bestest friends, and when camp ended, we said we would write letters and talk on the phone and visit and stuff. But she never did. I wrote letters, but they all came back and Daddy said not to again, it makes the mailman mad.” Her little eyebrows pinched together. “I liked her a lot, but I guess she didn’t mean it.”

The girl came out of the tack room empty-handed and retreated to her own horse’s stall, but Sean and Billy still didn’t emerge.

“Oh, Allie,” Dom put the brush down and knelt, mindful of the whereabouts of the horse’s feet. “Do you know, sometimes people make promises they really do mean to keep, but bad things happen and things just get lost. It even happens to grown-ups.” Dom stopped for a second, realizing that he really wasn’t just making an analogy she could understand. “Maybe she really meant to write, but she lost your address. I bet you she thinks about it and feels sad, just like you.”

“Really?”

Dom shrugged, “You never know. Maybe you’ll see her again someday.”

Allie smiled. “Maybe she’ll come back to next year’s camp?”

“That’s right, Maybe she will.” He grinned back widely, and stood. Finally, he saw Sean striding back up the aisle.

“Almost done?” he asked, darting a look at Dom. “We need to hurry, Allie. You know Mom gets grouchy if she can’t go to bed early anymore.”

“I know. I’m almost finished. His feet are too big for me.”

Billy emerged as Sean knelt to pick up the horses feet so Allie could pick them. His face was inscrutable, but there was tension in shoulders now, an amplification of what had been there when they arrived. His hat was gone and hair wild.

“It’s cold out, now it’s dark,” he addressed Allie with a nod as she finished with the hooves, and pulled a plaid horse blanket from the rack on the stall’s door, “This old man will be needing this tonight.”

Billy arranged the blanket over the horse, buckling several straps to keep the rig on, pulled open the stall door, and tugged the lead from its loop so Allie could lead the animal into its box for the night. Stroking the old horse’s velvety nose, he murmured something Dom couldn’t hear, the big wide lips slimily taking horse biscuits from his palms. This didn’t seem to faze him at all. He wiped the stickiness on his jeans before sliding the door closed.

Sean had taken the time to bundle Allie up further, holding out her knit gloves so she could wiggle her fingers inside and covering those with mittens. He tucked her velvet helmet beneath an arm and stood, jingling his keys in his coat. “I guess you two came in a cab?” he asked, and Dom nodded.

“I’ll drive you home,” Sean decided stonily and walked off, offering a hand to his daughter and expecting the rest to follow.

Dom took the quick moment alone to fix Billy’s scarf one more time, as it had become loose and the ends tangled, running a cool hand over Billy’s crazy hair. “You never told me you worked with horses,” he murmured with a secretive smile.

Billy stared at him, mouth parted and face unreadable. Plucking his knit cap from a coat pocket, he pulled it down hard and followed Sean out to his car, leaving Dom to trail without a word.

Dom sat in the front while Billy buckled in with Allie in the back of the sedan.

“Daddy, can Billy and Uncle Dom come over for dinner?”

Sean maneuvered the car carefully down the drive. “Not tonight.”

“But they haven’t in a long time and I want–“

“I said no, Alexandra!” Sean snapped.

Sean so rarely took a tone with his girls that Dom bit on his own retort and glared across the center console. Sean was upset with Billy, not his daughter, and he knew better than to project. He didn’t have to turn around to know the stunned hurt that would be on Allie’s face, and the eight year old and had the genetics for first rate sulking. A long uncomfortable silence followed them back through the Queens tunnel and into the neighborhoods of Forest Hills.

The icy chill of night settled in Dom’s chest as they drove. No matter what he did, he pushed too far. Even when he didn’t mean to, even when he had no idea certain subjects were off limits, there were triggers he’d hit. He just wished he knew where the damned boundaries were.

That wasn’t true. He wished he could simply ask, and Billy would _talk_. Without the anger, without imploding, without the fear Dom knew was there, just let the whole fucking mess out. He was sure that whatever Billy’s mistakes may have been and how bad they were, he would be willing and able to forgive them. The hard part was getting Billy to forgive himself, which he couldn’t do if he bottled it all up. Dom knew this better than anyone, because Billy had done it for him back on the boat; he had listened to Dom’s shame and accepted it. Why was this any different?

Once dropped at home and night had settled over the city in a cold dusting of stars and frigid haze, Billy microwaved a bit of leftover Chinese for himself and brought Dom’s out to the sofa straight from the fridge. They ate quietly at the coffee table, watching a sitcom neither paid much attention to.

Billy knew Dom liked his Chinese leftovers cold. Dom knew Billy liked his with extra Hoisin sauce and had made a point the other day to buy more when they’d run out. Why did they know stupid petty things about each other, but not the bigger ones?

When they’d finished, Billy cleared up, tossing cartons and making tea, bringing Dom a steaming cup as the ten o’clock news came on. He continued to move about the flat, gathering papers to be taken out, emptying the dishwasher and reloading it, walking in and out of the bedroom a half a dozen times before finally turning on the shower. Dom sat still, biting the chap from his lips and fighting the urge to ask questions. He couldn’t bear another fight.

Finally, Billy appeared at the bedroom door, scrubbed pink, wearing flannel pajama bottoms and the same expression he’d had at the stable. His brows gathered slightly in the middle and lips parted as he came to the front of the sofa and looked down at Dom for several long moments, as though searching for words he didn’t know. Dom looked back, hoping his apologies and his openness was reflected in his eyes.

Billy put a knee on the cushion just to the side of Dom’s, undecided on how to move. “I’m very selfish, Dominic,” he spoke, nearly a whisper.

Dom didn’t understand, but he cautiously took Billy’s hand and tugged. Billy folded down into him, sighing, his hands and nose brushing Dom’s face. He could feel how desperately Billy wanted to speak whatever gnawed at him from inside.

Billy stared at him, his eyes tracing over the whole of Dom’s face from hair to chin and back, memorizing. It would have made Dom uncomfortable if it didn’t mean he could do the same, to chart again and know how much of Billy’s face he’d committed to memory. So plain and imperfect, so young and yet not at all. Every line on this face had a story, Dom was certain; he just wished he could read the language.

Instead, Billy wrapped around him and pressed his face into Dom’s neck with a loaded sigh that made Dom positively ache. He wanted to ask, to plead, _please, Bill. Talk to me. Why are you so afraid? I won’t ever hurt you, don’t you see?_ But he couldn’t, his own fear of everything shattering held the words back.

“You smell like horses,” Billy mumbled against his skin.

“Yeah?” Dom tried a light tone, “I should shower.”

“No.” He hadn’t made a move to get up, but Billy’s arms tightened anyway, “No. Smells good.”

“Okay,” Dom squeezed his own arms, rubbing circles in the skin of Billy’s shoulder blades.

Billy kissed him, hungry and tense at once and then gentle and sweet, as though he could not make up his mind. Dom let him choose and followed. Billy was upset, but not with him, and Dom would not push.

Billy pull back with a wet noise and a breath, looking back into his eyes. “I… I did work at a racetrack. A long time ago.”

Dom nodded a careful, curious acknowledgement. This was brand new information, and very touchy, if the knots in Billy’s back had anything to say.

Billy sat back a bit and dropped his eyes, toying with the necklaces at Dom’s throat. “I was a groom, a stable boy, cleaned up shit and all that. They said I could be a jockey though. Small enough. Thought maybe I’d get somewhere with that. Once.”

Dom smiled encouragingly. This reopened the world Billy had lived in before all of this, the story Dom had had a peek at so many months ago, and oh, how Dom wanted to see more.

“But I… I fucked it up.” Billy bit off the words, “I fucked it up, Dom. And I’m a selfish cunt, because I… _can’t_ tell you more than that tonight. I’m too tired and too fucking _afraid_.”

Dom shook his head, trying to rub the tension away from Billy’s shoulders. “It’s enough, Billy. You don’t have to tell me anything–“

“Yes I fucking do!” Billy interrupted loudly, startling a wince from Dom. Eyes going wide, he immediately tried to make it up, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to. Fuck, I’m so fucking stupid!”

“Bills, shh. No, you’re not,” Dom cupped his face. “This isn’t twelve days to never anymore, you know? You can trust me. I’ll wait. I’ll wait for you to be ready. I told you I would.”

The look on Billy’s face was one of stunned disbelief. He shook his head just once. “I don’t… You’re too good to me, Dommeh. If you knew…“ he closed his eyes and mouth and said no more.

Dom touched a thumb to an old mark on Billy’s chin, then took his left hand and stroked lightly over the newest one. “If I knew, it would just be one more scar. Part of you.” He pushed their foreheads together with an exhale, “You told me you wouldn’t let me run away from you. I’m not going to let you either. ‘Cause I’m selfish too, Bills. I want to keep you no matter what.”

Billy wouldn’t look at him, so much conflict and despair in his face, his fingers tripping over greenstone, tugging lightly. “I’m so tired, Dom.”

That much was obvious. Billy was exhausted with far more than a busy, stressful evening. His whole body sagged with a long carried weight. Something had peeled back layers that Billy couldn’t cover up fast enough.

Dom pulled him up and clicked off the telly. “Then let’s sleep. As long as you need.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Truth.

_Thursday, October 12th_

Night brought the end of the cold snap. Before midmorning the sun was pushing the clouds out to sea and glinting off the icicles. They dripped steadily and the gutters ran.

Dom had interrogated Sean the minute they got in the car on a foster check to ask what had happened at the stables, but Sean stubbornly tightened his lips and stared icily through the windscreen.

Back at the office, noon came and went and on-site calls ran spare, it seemed they faced a dull, slow-moving day of paperwork and phone calls.

He eyed Sean across the desks and tried a new angle. “You didn’t have to bring Allie into it.”

It hit the right target. Sean looked up from beneath his brows. “I didn’t.”

“You barked at her when she asked a simple question,” Dom retorted, “I get it if you’re still pissed with him, but don’t take it out on her.”

“Don’t tell me how to parent my kid, Dominic,” Sean sneered. “I apologized to her afterwards. I was upset. He… made me angry.”

“Really? See, I thought you and Bill went off and made up a secret handshake or something. I admit I’m a bit jealous, man. I’ve known you for almost seven years, and you’ve known him only a month, and you two go off and leave me out of the club. I’m hurt.”

Sean found nothing to say to Dom’s cheek, a fact that always made him grumpier.

Dom pushed. “What happened in the tack room? What prompts the great father extraordinaire to bite his beloved daughter’s head off?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing doesn’t turn Billy into a twitchy bunch of nerves for the rest of the night, Sean. You had to have said something.”

“Maybe I did. Maybe it was something he needed to hear.”

“What, then?”

Sean shook his head and looked back down at his work.

“Sean–“

“Enough, Monaghan!” Cate's voice came through the open door of her office, and Dom ducked his head down to the same file he’d glared at for an hour straight. Audrey and Matilda had kept to themselves, though he knew if Cate could hear, they could as well. He sighed irritably, scribbling silly faces and nonsense and _Billy_ on a post-it. It was probably too much of a risk to pull a random case file and think up a stupid reason to do a check-up on his own. The sun was shining after days of cold and snow, and he longed to be out in it. With Billy would be even more preferable.

“Dom?” Lois, the desk clerk for the building poked her head in their door, “You have a visitor.”

Matilda and Audrey’s heads popped up over their desks immediately, and in another moment even Cate had appeared at the door of her office. It was odd enough for Lois to come up a flight of stairs to their office, since there were phone intercoms to use. But Dom had never had a visitor before.

Nodding thanks to Lois as she held the door, Billy came in laden down with paper bags and a bright smile.

“I hope I’m not too late to catch you lot for lunch,” he announced, speaking to everyone, but his eyes found Dom immediately. “Ehm, and I hope everyone likes Thai as much as I do, because I’ve brought nearly the whole Dragonfly menu with me.”

Dom could feel himself practically burning around the ears. “Billy, what are you up to?”

The table was cleared for the food in the miniscule break room and the dullness of the day was transformed as Billy went around introducing himself to the girls. Matilda and Audrey were charmed in less than a heartbeat, and even Cate’s usually icy manner thawed a bit at Billy’s offer of Pad Thai.

“Is it all right?” Billy asked quietly once he’d come to Dom’s side, holding up a carton of chicken adobo. “I was hungry, and I wanted to feed you too. I only hoped you’d be in, but I thought if you weren’t I should feed everyone. Sean, have some food? There’s plenty to go round.”

Sean had stayed resolutely at his desk through Billy’s disruption, but had been caught out eying the table full of cartons.

“Sean was just saying he was starving, weren’t you, Sean?” Dom added with a pointed look. It was a blatant peace offering.

Dom watched a silent exchange pass between them, Sean with his stubborn distrust, and Billy with determination behind a genial smile. Sean got up with a consenting sigh and helped himself to a small portion of chicken and veggies.

This was a hundred and eighty degrees from where Billy’s head had been last night, and reminded Dom of being back on the boat, in the company of that confident showman who made it clear to his own coworkers that Dom was something none of them held a candle to. Now the tables were turned, and Billy glowed in his simple jeans and jumper almost as much as he did in a tux, and it sent a warm shiver through Dom’s skin.

The food was spicy and delicious, and Billy set to charming the pants off everyone. Dom stole a few glances at Cate as she mingled amongst them, nodding and smiling at Billy’s conversation. She was as ever unreadable, so he let go the notion that there would be a reprimand. After all, there was no actual rule that they couldn’t have lunch hour visitors. Even if lunch hours were whenever one had time. Billy actually managed to get Cate to laugh out loud, which was possibly a miracle. Dom had managed it only once at a Christmas party years ago, and to be fair, she’d had a few glasses of wine at the time.

At one point during the lunch, Billy paused by the bulletin board, where photos of many kids were tacked.

“It’s all of our kids from this year,” Dom explained under the buzz of talk, coming up behind him. “Most of these are taken in foster care. I asked Cate if I could set it up after Shiloh. That way we can see what we’re meant to focus on, and we remember every one. That’s her, there.” He pointed out Shiloh’s picture. It had been taken in her foster family’s home at the piano, a day when she had smiled so much and Dom had been so proud of what she’d learned. Her dark eyes shone and her hair was in ringlet pigtails, and her grin for the camera had two new front teeth just beginning to grow in.

Billy leaned minutely back against Dom’s front. “She was happy that day.”

Dom closed his eyes briefly and tipped his forehead to Billy’s hair for a moment in answer, then pointed out a few of the others. “This is Alicia, and that’s Marcus, who was adopted a few months ago. That one is Ricardo. First one in his family to graduate high school, and did it early. He got accepted to Columbia just a month ago. And this… where are you…. this one is Justin and his little brother Ryan. I met with Justin this morning actually, he’s doing well. Ryan is still in and out of hospital though, so he’s with a different family that’s close to one.”

“You separated them, when they’re brothers?” Billy asked.

There was a note in his tone that made Dom’s gut clench up, and he pressed closer, dropping his voice lower. “Sometimes we have to, Bills.”

“Why?”

“There are so few foster families as it is, and so little space. Ryan’s medical issues mean he has to have a family that can deal with special needs, that’s even harder to find. They didn’t have room for both.” Dom reached for Billy’s free hand, and whispered, “You know I wouldn’t have done it if there was any other way.”

Billy tightened the grip of his hand as he gazed at all the little faces. “This is just one year?”

“Yes.”

“So many.”

“Yeah.” The cheer had dropped from Billy’s face at this revelation. “Hey,” Dom asked, pulling him away from the bulletin board, “Who’d you put the moves on to get this much food, anyway?”

Billy looked awkward and placating in answer, looking over at the others eating the food he’d brought with a smile. “I…erm… I took my guitar down to the park. Downtown.”

Dom cracked a grin. “You went and gave a performance and didn’t tell me?”

Billy flushed, “Come off it, it’s not the same thing. Lots of people go down there to get tourists to toss coins at them. No one makes that much anyway.”

Dom laughed, then looked around again. “Bills, there’s got to be a hundred dollars worth of food here. You made a hundred dollars singing in Central Park?”

“Sort of. Well, no, Erm. Only made about twenty there, but the owner of the Dragonfly gave me a few coupons, and I had a little leftover from… ah, something before.” Dom eyed him sternly, having heard nothing of this. Billy’s hand had migrated to the curls at his own neck. “I … weeks ago, I was down along the mall and there were a bunch of blokes recruiting to tear up a section of a car park, and so I did that for a few days.”

Dom blinked at him. Tearing out pavement was long hours and hard work with heavy lifting. “Billy, they pull bums and street kids to do that sort of thing. You’re better off at the park, or out hitting the jazz clubs–“

“Well, what d’you think I did when I was the same as them?” Billy retorted.

“I know, but you’re not anymore and your hand–“

Billy stopped him with finger to his lips and a soft smile, “If I need money, I work for it, you know that. I told you I would pay you back, and I will. And my hand is fine now, so quit your fretting, ya hen.”

Dom sighed, holding up Billy’s hand to examine it, but it was very hard to get upset when Billy wasn’t jumpy, but bright and gorgeous as he’d ever been in a room full of people whose moods he’d just lifted.

“Besides,” Billy continued shyly, “I went back to Manhattan this morning. You remember that guitar shop?”

Dom thought for a moment, watching the twinkle in Billy’s eyes, and his heart leapt as the realization hit.

Billy blushed radiantly, “Just a few days a week. But he’s… Alejandro, the bloke who owns it… he’s going to apprentice me.”

Dom gave a whoop, forgetting himself and where he was, and swept Billy into a huge hug. “Really? And he… and you can… Shit, that’s amazing!”

Billy shrugged when Dom let him go, “It’s just like Gavin’s actually, but,” he looked back at Dom’s face, “I don’t mind.”

Dom took in the eagerness of Billy’s face and the hope that had seemed so lost in the past week. This was the second chance Billy so desperately needed. He wanted to kiss him, or possibly drag him off to the men’s, but knew he probably shouldn’t.

All too soon the table of food was decimated, and Cate called for a return to order, and Dom reluctantly let Billy make his way home and returned to his work.

  
It wasn’t until after one measly hospital check, a few phone calls and the mountain of paperwork had a dent in it that Dom was nearly ready to leave.

“Monaghan, a moment?” Cate asked from the door of her office as he pulled his briefcase from beneath the desk.

Ah. He’d be getting a talking-to after all. “I’ll tell Billy he shouldn’t come unannounced like that,” he started as he followed her into her office. “I don’t know what he was thinking, really. It was disruptive and I’m sure he just meant well, and it won’t happen again.”

Cate eyed him with a raised brow from where she’d taken her seat. “Are you finished?”

Dom blinked. “Yeah.”

“Good. Close the door and sit.”

He did as he was told. Cate’s office had nice chairs, comfortably padded before a simple, yet solid oak desk. Not grand, by any means, but imposing simply because Cate commanded a certain air of respect and it seemed to extend to her surroundings and possessions.

“Disruptive, yes, but welcome. I love Pad Thai,” Cate finally spoke, resting her chin in one slim hand as she looked him over.

A corner of Dom’s mouth quirked, feel the color on his cheeks rise. “So does he.”

“He mentioned something about visiting your parents for the holidays,” she continued, “And yet you haven’t requested the time off, as far as I’ve seen.”

Dom sat back, picking at his fingernails. Technically, he’d told his mother he would _try_ to get the time off, he hadn’t quite committed to a Christmas dealing with his father just yet. “I’ve already used my vacation time this year.”

“Actually, I’m fairly certain that you received an additional week, as per the terms of your commendation in the spring.” Cate shot down his excuse, looking at his file on her desk. Closing it and leaning on her arms toward him, gave a decidedly sympathetic sigh as she looked him over. “Not to mention you have another four available sick days. I’d really prefer you made use of them.”

“But, the kids–“

“–Have the rest of us as well,” she finished for him. “Audrey is going to get a new intern in January, by the way. You know we’ve discussed getting more people on board for months, and it seems that we’re finally getting leave from the county to do so. That means you and Sean can at least shave a bit of time off your week.”

“But, the kids need us,” He retorted stubbornly.

“The kids don’t need you every single day,” Cate spoke a raised brow, and yet softened it with a smile. “You are not the only person here who cares about them. And they are not the only people you care about. Sean’s got another baby to think of, and you… well. Suffice to say, you finally have something outside of this godforsaken place. If I were you I wouldn’t put this one first.”

Dom twisted his rings. More and more this sounded like the “talking-to” he thought he’d avoided.

She dropped her eyes for a moment. “This isn’t a punishment, Monaghan. The opposite, in fact. Your salary remains the same. You are dedicated; I don’t doubt that for a second. But it wears on you more than I think you see.”

“I don’t…” Dom shut his eyes, choosing his words slowly and carefully. “I have been very careful… I’ve kept my distance since Shi– since the Casiano case.”

“You have,” she agreed. “Which means you should be using the extra vacation time you were given before it disappears with the New Year, don’t you think? Billy seemed quite excited about it.”

Dom darted a look up and saw the sparkle in her eyes. His lips curled without his permission. Billy had made Cate laugh on their first meeting, and that was saying something.

“So,” she tapped a pen on a vacation request that was already mostly filled out in her neat feminine print. “Christmas through the New Year, that should cover your days that won’t roll over. And I want one of those Mind The Gap pins they sell at the airport.”

She pushed the form and a pen across the desk and sat back, looking out her window. “No one lasts forever in this profession, Dominic. I didn’t leave the bar association because I wanted to be more hands on. I left because I damn well couldn’t take it anymore. It wears a person out, you know, even if you do love it.”

It was one of the odd moments when Cate seemed more a friend than a boss. She didn’t often call him by his first name, nor did she drop her guard and speak candidly. Truthfully, Dom knew very little about her, except that she was married to a man who was still a practicing attorney, and they had two children.

“But…” he started, not knowing if he could ask further, “This is easier? Kids die because we don’t get there fast enough, and it’s easier for you?”

“It’s easier than knowing those bastards are still on the streets because you defended them and won most of your cases,” she sighed, her sharp eyes softening a bit, “It’s never easy, Dom. But going home to something lovely helps.”

Dom remembered that day, that horrible day just weeks ago when he’d come home to Billy so angry he could break things, and it had been Billy that brought him back. Billy had helped him let Shiloh go. Billy had given him the _Manaia_ pendant he wore, and Billy could take it off. Billy wanted to meet Dom’s parents, which was the closest thing to serious Dom had ever had.

He leaned forward and signed the form. He could phone his mum with dates, at least, and worry about his dad later.

In a moment Cate stood and looked at her own stack of paperwork with contempt before sweeping it unceremoniously in her own briefcase and reaching for her long coat. “Come on, get your things and walk me to the station, hmm? I daresay you have more enjoyable things to do than creating more paperwork for me to review. You will thank Billy again for us, won’t you? Audrey asked if he had a brother that was single.”

That startled a chuckle from him as he retrieved his own briefcase and held the door for her. “’Fraid not.”

Sleep wouldn’t come. He kept turning the day over and over in his mind, the night before with Sean’s secrecy, Billy at lunch, planning this suddenly firm holiday. He took to rereading an old book to try to distract his mind and tire his eyes.

“Dom?”

Dom looked at Billy’s hunched back under the duvet, cringing inwardly. “Sorry. Am I keeping you awake?”

“No,” Billy murmured, rolling to his back with a sigh, “I can’t sleep either.”

Putting the tattered novel aside, Dom scooted down into the blankets, tucking an elbow beneath his pillow to prop his head in Billy’s direction.

Billy picked at the edges of the blankets without looking back at him. “Do you still have those addresses?” he eventually asked.

Dom’s heart gave a jump. He never had deleted the file. “Yes.”

Billy was silent for long minutes, staring up at the shadows the dim lamp threw on the ceiling.

“I can delete the email if you want me to,” Dom said quickly, “It’d be gone.” The moment the words left his mouth, he bit his tongue. Of course the addresses would still exist, even if the email didn’t. Billy knew that as well as he did.

Billy’s hand slid over, lacing his fingers with Dom’s and pulling it over the rest on his stomach. “I don’t want you to.”

“…Okay.” Dom watched Billy carefully in the dark. He made no other movements, but his brows were drawn in thought, his fingers firm against Dom’s, his lips tensing as if to speak, but no words came.

“You don’t have to do anything about it, Billy–”

“I know that,” Billy interrupted, almost with a bite to it. He sat up in the bed, letting go Dom’s hand and scrubbing at his hair nervously, “I know.”

Dom sat up with him, cautious and still in the dim yellow light of their bedroom. This was so delicate a place to tread with Billy that he feared saying anything at all, but it was so clear Billy was trying to come to terms with something now, albeit in the middle of the night. How many nights had Billy lain awake like this, in the turmoil of his own thoughts while Dom slept beside him? How many before that?

When Billy spoke, it was a bitter, fearful breath. “What must you think of me?”

Dom sighed, curling one hand over Billy’s shoulder and scooting behind him, gathering the pillows so he could lean against the headboard. That Billy could even now fear so much what Dom thought of him, it made an ache in the pit of his stomach. He buried his nose in the curls at Billy’s nape when Billy leaned back against him. “I think… it’s a lot to think about. I think…” Dom struggled to find careful words and failed, “Christ, Billy. I don’t know what I’m supposed to think. We just got back to normal. It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“It does. I’m so stupid, Dom. I’m stupid and childish and selfish and I… punch holes in your wall like it’s going to make it better if I fucking hit something–”

“Then you fixed it. Our wall. Yours too. It’s almost done, you just have to sand and paint it over, right?”

Billy gave a heavy exhale at Dom’s words, muttering, “I’m bound to break other things.”

“You can patch them up too,” Dom countered. Things were good, they were fabulous, and he was going to hold on stubbornly to his confidence. “ We’ll mend it and keep going, remember? You can fix anything.”

“Can I?” Billy asked a little sardonically.

Dom turned his face the other direction, looking at Billy’s photograph on the bedside table. His sister’s face was happy in it, and so was Billy’s, cheeky and all of six years old and completely untouched but all the troubles that lay on him now.

“She hated that name, you know. Maggie for Margaret,” Billy spoke, quiet and faraway, looking at the picture as well. “She fancied ‘Margo’ when we were teenagers. It was cooler to her girlfriends, and boys too, I guess. But I was her little brother; I always called her Maggie. She’d bruise my head with her knuckles. S’why I’m thin up there now, probably. But it doesn’t matter. She was so angry with me when I left.”

Dom drew his fingers over Billy’s scalp. Thin, yes, but he didn’t care. Matt had done the same thing to him when they were kids, it was what big brothers and sisters did.

Billy heaved a huge breath. “We both worked at that racetrack, Maggie and me. Hamilton Park, just outside of Glasgow. Both of us took the bus out during that summer, almost every day. I was fourteen when we started. It was… it was a few months after Mum and Dad died, and Gran worked all day at the shirt factory then to keep us up, so we wanted to help. We got a few quid a day back then.”

Dom wound his arms around Billy’s waist, one hand still clenched in Billy’s fingers. Billy had brought the subject round himself and Dom was fucked if he wasn’t going to let him talk.

“There was… there was this lad.” Billy’s voice sharpened, “This older lad, the son of one of the owners. He would come round and exercise his father’s horses, and he’d run them damn near to the ground, him and his friends, when the trainers weren’t around. I was just a hired hand from the East Side and I was nothing, he never failed to rub that in. Sometimes I’d be hauling a cart of shite out, and they’d come by and push me over into it, or push it over in the aisle and dump the mess. Or he’d kink the hose when I’d fill water.

“He used to dump the horses he rode on me to cool them down after, the poor things trembling on their legs and sweat all over. If I said no, I knew where he’d put the blame if anything happened to his father’s horses. If you work them and then don’t cool them down slow, they get sick. Especially running them as hard as they can go, when they’re just babies. Horse racing is a cruel sport, Dominic. I learned that, then. And I hated him. I hated that boy.”

He picked irritably at the bedclothes. “I didn’t know until later that Maggie fancied him. Or that he…he led her on, he let her think they were… you know, together. And why not, you know? Where we come from, I couldn’t blame her for hoping she could be with a man who had so much that we didn’t. She was sixteen and wanted to be more than we were, just like me. I didn’t know it until afterwards.”

Billy stopped and didn’t continue. Dom prompted gently. “Afterwards?”

His breath shuddered a little before he spoke, “He came one day, when I was mucking, and brought a horse round the same as always. And this filly… she was hardly more than a yearling and he’d ridden her so hard that she was foaming all red at the mouth, bleeding from the bit. A sharp stallion bit, on a little soft-mouthed filly. It wasn’t even fitted right for her, strapped too tight. I just couldn’t let it go that time, so I called him out on it, said I’d be telling the trainer why her mouth was all cut up.”

Billy’s bare stomach tensed under Dom’s hand, and his fingers tightened. “He laughed. Asked me why I should care and if I really thought I could get him in trouble. I don’t remember what I said, but somehow he brought things round to Maggie. He said such things, Dom. Things about me and my family. About her. He called her a whore and… other things I’d never even heard about girls then, about _my sister_. And… I hit him, and I didn’t stop.”

Billy spoke his rage through his teeth to quiet it. “I broke his nose, and his jaw, and three of his ribs before they dragged me off him. I can still… I can still hear the sounds that filly made, I frightened her so much.”

Dom rested his forehead against the nape of Billy’s neck as he listened. This must be what Billy had been so terrified to tell him, all this time. And he could understand, it was that side of Billy that he was deeply ashamed of, and it was a brutal thing he’d done. “What happened then?”

“I was arrested. They kept me in a detention for boys for a month or so, and I picked fights in there too. I wanted to go to jail, I didn’t fucking care.” Billy mopped a hand over his face and hair again. “But that bastard’s family took pity on the poor Cranhill trash, and struck a deal because I wasn’t of age. I had to work off my debt to them, for _his_ medical costs. They could have used twenty pound notes for toilet paper, but they made me work for a year at the track.

“But… Maggie,” he sighed, “She barely spoke to me after I came home, she wouldn’t believe the things he said about her. And when I was finally done, and I told her I’d make everything better for us, and she looked at me like… like she _hated_ me. She said it didn’t matter. Mum, Dad, her friends over the years, that boy, they all left her, made no difference if I did too. It was the day after my sixteenth birthday. I promised I’d come back but… I never did.”

“But,” Dom tried, “You said you wrote each other.”

Billy paused, and plunged on. “I lied, when I said that. I… I did write a few times in the beginning, just so Gran wouldn’t send the police hunting me down. I even sent money, once, when I’d won a fight. The last time I wrote, I left the address to Gavin’s shop. But the letter came back. Wasn’t even opened.”

Careful to keep a hold of Billy’s hand, Dom leaned to turn out the lamp, the light of the moon through the curtains enough to touch Billy’s shoulders.

“So what do you think of me now, Dominic?” he muttered quietly, so much foreboding in his tone.

Dom thought long and hard before he answered. Looking again to the picture he could just barely make out the shapes, and he could see in his mind’s eye Billy’s writing on the other side.

But so much of Billy’s personality came together due to this one incident: his tendency not to think past the moment, his unfailing loyalty, his definitions of love and what it wasn’t, as much as what it was. His control, which despite recent mishaps, had matured as much as he had himself. None of these were qualities Dom faulted.

“I think,” he began, tightening his arms to show he wasn’t letting go and willing Billy to hear him out, “I think you made a mistake a long time ago. And I think you’ve carried it with you all this time. And I think… I think you need someone to forgive you because you _are_ sorry now, Billy. And I do.”

Billy exhaled a nervous shuddery breath and shifted to Dom’s side in the bed. His eyes studied the ceiling again, perplexed.

Dom curled into him, one hand on his chest. Billy’s heart was beating a tattoo against his chest. He must have a thousand feelings and thoughts in his head. “All right?” Dom asked him.

Billy turned to him looking utterly confused. “How can you just let it go like that? I beat someone up, Dom, when I was just a kid, him bigger and older than me. I beat him unconscious. I would have killed him if they hadn’t stopped me.”

Dom shook his head, “Everything you just told me, I already knew about you. I knew you had a temper. I knew about Maggie. I’ve seen the back of your picture, Bills, and I didn’t mean to, but that old frame just falls apart if you touch it wrong,” he swiftly apologized, touching Billy’s cheek gently. “The rest was just details. I forgave you all of this a long time ago.”

“But,” Billy protested, “You put people in jail for this.”

“Yes, but that’s only if they don’t change,” Dom said. “I also give people chances. Especially the kids. That boy on our board, Ricardo? He was in a gang by the time his was thirteen, and stabbed someone a year later. Same age as you were. We helped him choose a better path, Bills. Didn’t anyone try to help you?”

Billy searched his mind, still perplexed. “I guess… I guess they tried but, I wouldn’t listen. I never did. I’m so stupid.”

Dom stopped the words with his fingers. “You’re not stupid. You were just confused and angry and no one listened, and so you didn’t listen either. You’re nothing new to me, Bills.”

In his job, he had seen first hand the difference between those who had remorse for their actions and those who took pleasure from it. Billy had already learned his lesson, he didn’t need Dom for that. He’d seen how easily Billy could be set off, and he’d seen him control himself in the face of similar circumstances. Dom very distinctly remembered just how much control it took Billy not to apply his fists to Orlando the night he’d so publicly dropped Elijah. He remembered as well the rage and tension in his body afterwards, and the way he himself had reacted to it. It had not been the possibility of a fight Dom knew Billy was capable of, it had been the lack of it that turned him on.

Whether Billy knew it or not, he had already been attempting to correct this one mistake over the years, with every person he’d come to care for. He’d seen the wrong, and now strove to make it right the only way he could.

Billy shifted closer nervously, “I could do it again. I’m… I’m a loose cannon.”

“Of course you could. But I don’t think you will,” Dom tucked Billy into his side, “You are so aware of it now, Bills. Even if you slip up, you’ll catch yourself before you do any real damage.”

“But, the wall…”

“The wall isn’t a person,” Dom countered, “You were just as surprised as I was when that happened.”

Billy burrowed his face into Dom’s neck. Dom held him close in the dark, dropping a kiss to his hair.

He had never doubted that he could let go Billy’s worst mistake. It was long in the past, and left a deep festering scar, but that angry fourteen-year-old boy was no longer the same as the man in his arms. He was wiser, and he recognized his mistakes, even as he continued to make them. What he needed was to be shown that he could be forgiven, so that he could ultimately forgive himself.

“You told me once, on the boat, that you imagined that she was happy. Do you still?”

Billy nodded against his neck.

“Then you’re not angry with her anymore,” Dom reasoned, “Maybe she isn’t either, hmm?”

Billy sighed heavily, “I don’t know, Dommeh.”

Dom clutched him tight, trying to soothe and soften this. It was a loaded question, a boundary that had gotten him in trouble before, but now he crossed it again on a tentative whisper. “Why are you so afraid of her? Of finding her again?”

Billy drew a great breath and swallowed, tucking himself tighter under Dom’s chin, and when he answered, his words were small and despairing. “I’m afraid she won’t care.”

Dom’s heart nearly broke. Billy had spent so long harboring this fear, nursing it until it had grown so large and dreadful and monstrous that he’d pushed it down as hard as he possibly could, refusing to even let it come close to thought, as though thinking it would make it truth.

He turned them to their sides to look Billy in the eye in the dark. “Where are you, Bills?” Billy’s eyes darted between his own, and Dom pressed on, “You got to me on that boat with your hope and your choices and your silly notes and songs. If you can do that, I think you can do anything. You can make her care.”

“I can’t do it by myself. I don’t know how.”

Dom closed his eyes and held him close. “You aren’t by yourself anymore.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner and do-overs.

_Friday, October 13th_

Dom tucked three of the four grocery bags in one hand, set down his briefcase, and stuck the key into the lock. The door swung open and he shuffled in, blinking at the apartment he’d come home to.

“Bill?”

Billy came out of the bathroom with a bucket and mop, looking quickly over all the groceries Dom lugged over the threshold with a smile. “Why don’t you ever tell me you’re going to the market?” He stashed the cleaning supplies in the laundry closet and went to pull Dom’s briefcase inside behind him, setting it on the desk and closing the door. “I have the extra two arms you’re missing, you know,” he grinned, flexing cheekily.

“Because I wanted to surprise you,” Dom answered, his hands still full. Looking around when he’d dropped the lot on the kitchen floor, he raised his eyebrows at the surprise of his own. The flat was sparkling clean, floors vacuumed, magazines gone from the coffee table, lamps and bookshelves dusted. Their place was never really a disaster, but this was definitely a step above the usual comfortable chaos. Even the window of the fireplace was clean, throwing warm light throughout the living room. “What’s all this? Tired of living with a slob?”

“I had to,” Billy shrugged, smiling lightly, “Plaster dust goes everywhere.”

Dom did a double take and caught the look of accomplishment on Billy’s face. Turning around to the hall, he found where there had been a hole and then a patch, there was nothing but smooth wall, with the soft off-white paint matched perfectly.

“It’s still a bit wet,” Billy’s voice came quiet over his shoulder, catching his arm gently when Dom moved to touch the spot where the hole had been.

“Mm. I’ll have to use this one, then.” Dom turned and crowded him against the opposite wall and planted an eager kiss on his mouth.

“That was a bit wet too,” Billy snickered.

“Do you mind?”

“No,” Billy grinned, spun him around and gave back as good as he got. His hands pushed Dom’s coat to the floor, tugged Dom’s tie loose and off, and crept down to pull his shirt from his trousers.

While Billy was working his way to an earlobe, Dom grinned happily. It seemed he and Bill were channeling a similar energy tonight, a good one considering the night before and the quiet of this morning. Billy had slept right through the alarm, and Dom had tucked the covers around him and slipped quietly out to work, leaving a post-it with a heart drawn on it stuck to the kettle. It had left the whole day away from each other, and Dom had worried about Billy’s state of mind until a wild idea had sprouted in his head. He wondered if it could work like it was meant to this time, and he hoped fervently that it would.

“I’m hungry,” he announced, wriggling away and making for the kitchen.

Billy followed slowly, his eyes still warm and dark, climbing onto the barstool as Dom unpacked the groceries, watching as fresh pears, cranberries, and Cornish hens came out of the bags. Dom flashed quick looks at him occasionally while he dressed the birds to put in the oven. He’d turned to start sugar and vinegar in a saucepan and jumped when Billy had snuck in with silent socked feet, wrapping around him from behind. “Can I help this time?” he asked quietly.

Dom smiled a little nervously at the egg timer in his hands. Billy had always been a quick study. Setting it for the hens to cook, he put it down, turned in Billy’s grasp and nodded assent.

Billy smiled apologetically, “I’m no good at this, so I might need an instruction or two.”

They worked side by side, bumping often in the small space, Dom coring and chopping firm pears and ginger root and Billy preparing a salad, watching each other’s work. It proved distraction enough of Dom’s nerves and doubts about this little plan, watching Billy’s neat, precise hands shred lettuce and slice carrots, mushrooms and other salad toppers into the bowl. He was defeated by a tomato, which squelched and made a mess and a frustrated Billy until Dom took the paring knife away and gave him a serrated one.

Viggo’s chutney simmered, filling the flat with a warm, fruity, spicy aroma, and the hens came out of the oven perfectly golden. Billy set the table and found a candle to light. Dom even dug out a Riesling he’d been given at some point or another and forgotten about. The telly was off, the CD player on low volume, and the dining room table got the shock of being properly used for possibly the first time in its existence.

Dom took a bite, the flavour of the chutney taking him back to that day in Viggo’s kitchen. To his credit, he’d gotten the recipe mostly right, and the replacement of cranberries for currents faired well, but there was a distinct lack of cinnamon.

“Tell me about your brother,” Billy asked after helping himself to seconds.

Dom smiled and shrugged, “What about him?”

“What’s he like?” Billy urged, gesturing with his fork, “You called him Mattie, on the phone with your mum.”

Dom laughed. “Did I? That’s Mum. She’s called him that since we were little, and it stuck. He doesn’t mind though. Matt’s the sort of bloke that takes shit in stride, you know. He’s always been the one with his head in the clouds, but always fifty steps ahead. Don’t ever play chess with him.”

“He’s one of those who beats you every time without trying?” Billy grinned.

“No,” Dom rolled his eyes, “He’s the one that takes forever to make a move. Not because he’s strategizing, but because he’s off in his own head anytime you give it to him. He’s not thinking about chess, he’s off thinking about the Cayman Islands, or cheese-making, or what goes into the making of vinyl records. Tells you all about it too. Jabbers the whole time. And _then_ he moves when he’s got you good and distracted, and your fucking king’s checked.”

Billy had begun giggling at ‘cheese-making’, tipping his head back with glee, and Dom drank it in. Oh, he loved to make this man laugh.

“He… when we were kids,” he continued, “He was always getting himself in trouble, going out and throwing rocks at windows, smoking behind the gymnasium with his mates. He’s smart though, even if he pissed his way through school with marks that just passed. Dad would…” Dom hesitated, but finished it quietly, ”Dad would yell at him a lot.”

Billy twirled his wine glass. Dom fully expected him to push that bruise, but instead he diverted, “Where is he?”

“Christ, I don’t know,” Dom popped a last forkful into his mouth and sat back. “He’s always on the move. Last I heard from him he was in Germany, and before that it was Romania. Anywhere but home, I think. He can speak at least a little of a dozen languages and be a charming git in most of them.”

Billy grinned, teasing, “More charming than you?”

“As charming as _you_ , probably. He’s… he was always the good looking one.”

Billy said nothing to that, but held Dom’s gaze steadily until Dom felt his cheeks color up. Finally Billy stood, taking up his plate and Dom’s, leaning down to plant a kiss to the top of his head as he did so.

Dom followed and stood close behind to observe, keeping his hands to himself as Billy washed up, enjoying the scent of him and the calm, unassuming progress of this quiet evening.

Something had changed subtly since last night’s confession. Billy was the same Billy, yet just slightly different. Almost like he was feeling Dom out, playing the game without quite having a grasp on the rules. But he’d guessed Dom’s plan and run with it. He’d played along and played his part and they’d made it through dinner without a hitch.

Feeling a little bold, Dom sidled up closer, hands on Billy’s hips and feeling the softness of the curls at Billy’s nape against his nose. “Quid pro quo, Bills.”

Billy chuckled as he scrubbed the saucepan. It betrayed his unease, the slight tension of his stance, the déjà vu of this evening. He was poised and trying, but in this moment Dom held the wild card, and Billy was perhaps more vulnerable than he’d ever been in Dom’s presence.

 _Patience_ , Dom thought, whispering his question in Billy’s ear. “Why do you like Thai food so much?”

Billy stopped scrubbing to look back over his shoulder, surprise and amusement in his face. Dom quirked his brows back, happy to have caught him on his guard without needing to be. _See, you don’t need to hide from me, Bills_.

Turning back to his scouring, Billy answered. “The ship went round that way, through the islands. There’s an Indonesian tour that goes round to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, and ends in Singapore. Viggo and I went out almost every day, and he’d shop the markets and buy spices. We ate at all sorts of little tents and shops, and sometimes the people you meet in markets would… they’d just invite you home and cook for you. And there’s no Thai food can compare, Dommeh, not anywhere in New York, or anywhere else.” He put the last pot on the drying rack and dried his hands, turning to face Dom again, “It’s all right, but it’s not the same.”

Dom smiled through this story, another piece of the puzzle that was Billy. “I think you’re as much of a gypsy as Matt,” he grinned. “And Viggo too.”

“Viggo’s happy as long as he has a kitchen.” Billy paused, then went on, “Even if they had nothing, but a little shack that they shared with all their… all their family, and the same chickens they’d prepare for you. It was strange that they’d be so…” He tried to find the word, but shook his head, folding the kitchen towel more times than necessary before just taking it to the laundry closet and tossing it in the hamper.

“Generous?” Dom offered, following him out of the kitchen.

“Yeah. To people they know nothing about. It’s just odd to me.” Billy admitted. He had retrieved Dom’s coat from the floor where they’d left it and hung it up. Fussing a little with the sofa pillows in the living room and scratching at an imaginary speck on the glass of the coffee table he’d already cleaned, he didn’t say more.

Dom said nothing, toying with volume on the CD remote and just watching as Billy fidgeted. They both knew what came next.

Billy straightened up finally with a tentative smile. “This is the part where you pull a list of addresses out of your briefcase,” he pointed out.

Dom cocked his head. “Is it?”

Billy nodded. His fingers rose near to his hair, but then were stifled in his pockets.

“Then what happens?”

“I… ah,” Shifting his feet, Billy gestured, glancing around a little wildly, “I put my fist through that wall there like a complete fecking idiot, and run off and hide in a subway, is what happens.”

Dom had moved before Billy finished speaking, taking him by the shoulders. “See, but last time, we didn’t even make it to dinner.” Billy’s eyes slid back up to Dom’s and stayed there, and Dom grinned, “And since we’re on do-overs, I think we should go for broke. Dance with me.”

Billy blinked, lips pursed, his face flashing between distrust and confusion and finally beguilement. He actually blushed, listening to the music that had been playing through dinner as Dom made him sway a little on his feet. It was the opening strains of _I Only Have Eyes For You_.

“You planned this,” he accused.

“Mmm. I planned dinner with you and Viggo’s chutney. Dancing was a spontaneous and pitiful attempt at romance. Besides,” he nodded at the stereo and lifted a brow. “You picked the CD, not me. It just happened to be what was playing.”

“How very predestined,” Billy grinned, and with a shift in his stance, a turn of a foot, he’d brought whatever step they were doing into balance, but stepped on Dom’s foot anyway. “Sorry. I’m used to leading.”

“S’alright. I don’t know what I’m doing anyway.” Dom now felt silly, having initiated proper dancing with someone who was actually good at it, but Billy didn’t seem to mind. “Mum taught me when I was little but I wasn’t any good.”

“I get to meet your mum. I’ll have to ask her, eh?”

Dom flushed, “Yeah. No doubt you’ll hear embarrassing stories and see baby pictures too.”

Billy grinned, “I can’t wait. _The moon may be high, I can’t see a thing in the sky, cause I only have eyes for you,_ " he sang softly. “I didn’t remember the words.”

Dom nuzzled Billy’s cheek with his nose and sighed, “I love to hear your voice, Bills.”

“No,” Billy pulled back just a touch to look at him fully. “I didn’t remember _those_ words. You came in and looked at me right then, in the Lounge, that first time, and… I forgot. Repeated the verse.”

Dom chuckled, trying to remember such a mishap from smooth, perfect Lounge Singer Billy, but couldn’t see or hear it in his head. He remembered thinking Billy was nothing special, a small man with a big voice on a stage. He remembered Bean nudging him to keep looking.

The song played itself to an end, and Dom broke from his memories to see Billy glancing over his shoulder towards the desk, at the briefcase, the slightest tension back in his shoulders where they’d come to a stop.

“It’s in there,” Dom whispered, “When you want it, Billy. Only then.”

Billy’s eyes pulled back to him, looking for deception and finding none. With a sigh, he sat down on the sofa, and a moment later offered up a hand to bring Dom beside him.

He looked at their hands and then away at the fireplace, his voice hesitant, “Do I disappoint you?”

“What? No!” Dom’s brows furrow at this sudden insecurity. “No. Why would you think that?”

“I’m… I’m not,” Billy mopped a palm over his face, “I’m not what I pretend to be. I’m not… what you want me to be.”

“Billy,” Dom paused to consciously soften his voice, “What to do you think I want you to be?”

“I don’t know,” Billy said harshly, already frustrated. “It feels like… I feel like I’m lying to you, but I’ve never… I’ve never been more truthful to _anyone_ else. All that shite I said last night that I’ve never… Why does it still feel so…” he stopped, lacking the words, but one hand made a tight fist, pressing against his ribs.

Dom took the hand in his own, gently until Billy’s fingers relaxed. He chewed his lip, worried this could turn bad in a heartbeat. “Bills, you’re… unexpected. You always were. I love that about you.”

“I’m just not used to this… this sort of–“

“I don’t expect you to be, Bills.”

Billy fingers paused his words, “No, let me finish. I need to say this. What I said last night, and... and things I said back on the boat… I’ve never told anyone those things.”

Dom digested this. “Bean? And Elijah?”

Billy shook his head. “Bean knows I have a sister, but it never went past that. He’s not the sort that asks. And Lij is… too close.”

“Too close,” Dom questioned.

“His brother and sister, his mum, you know?” Billy explained, “Lij ran away to find his brother, and lost everything else on the way. He didn’t need my problems on top of that, at the time when we…” Billy dropped his eyes and picked at Dom’s rings, “When we were close.”

“See,” Dom kidded, “I always thought you two were good for each other.”

“Shut it,” Billy eyed him sternly, “That was long before you came in.”

“I came in and made a mess of your little circus,” Dom was only half-joking this time, flipping his hand over for Billy’s questing fingers. They laced with his and gripped tightly.

“It was already a mess,” Billy disagreed, “It was falling apart anyway, just like everything else has. It’s always done that and every time it does, I run away. I start fresh.”

“You stuck with Bean for a while, though.”

“Aye,” Billy fidgeted, "Bean’s more tolerant than most people.”

“He never asked you anything?” Dom prodded, “He was under the impression he knew you pretty well.”

“Bean’s a bartender, people unload shite on them all the time.” Billy said, “I never told him more than I was willing to say, and he never asked. And he does know me well. Just not everything.”

“What did you tell Elijah?” Dom pressed, “Assuming he asked.”

“’Course he did. Nosy little fucker,” Billy looked down shamefully. “I lied. I told him she was dead too, with my parents. Dommeh, I’m sorry.”

Dom smoothed the creases that formed on Billy’s forehead at his distress. “You keep apologizing for no reason, Bills.”

“There are reasons!” Billy fired off, but checked his tone before rushing on, “Because I’m such a prick about this to you and because sometimes I wish I just lied to you about it so you’d never know and you wouldn’t worry and I wouldn’t have half-convinced myself it wasn’t the truth anyway. I lie to everyone, myself included. You trust me too much, Dominic.”

“What if it is the truth, and she is gone?” Dom licked his lips, thinking carefully. “It could be, Billy. Would it change anything?”

Billy blinked, but his face tensed even more.

“If we looked for her, and she really is gone, it would at least be closure,” Dom told him, and turned Billy’s face to meet his eyes, “But you don’t believe that, do you? Not really. You want to believe she’s fine and she’s happy and she’s loved.”

“She deserves it more than–“

“Don’t you dare, Billy,” Dom growled, anger welling up with sudden ferocity. “Don’t you dare think you don’t deserve this. Us. I fought you on it from day fucking one, didn’t I? And you never gave up on me. Not even after I walked away from you. You made me a promise, and you kept it. You came to me.”

Billy stared back at him, stunned to silence.

Dom dropped his own eyes, trying to calm himself and the situation by raising Billy’s hand and kissing it lightly. “If you take a chance and find her, no matter what happens, at least you’ll know the real truth that you’re afraid of. And that _guilt_ …” Dom made a fist and pressed it where Billy’s had been against his chest, “It would unravel and let go of you, and you could _live_ , Bills.” Dom darted his eyes between Billy’s. “When you’re ready.”

Billy didn’t speak for some time, and Dom could see him weighing his dilemma. Getting up and leaving him to it, he went to the kitchen to make some tea, digging in the cupboards to see if he had any biscuits to go with it for a meager dessert. When he turned, Billy was standing at the entrance of the kitchen, watching. Crossing the floor, he took the cookie tin from Dom’s hands, cupped his face and kissed him. It was close-lipped and chaste, soft and slow and breathtaking. Dom gasped.

“I love you,” Billy said, looking straight at him, “I don’t tell you that enough.”

Dom pulled him close. “I love you too. So much, Bills. I’ll do anything for you.”

Billy pillowed his face into Dom’s neck and shoulder, and Dom leaned minutely back against the edge of the sink, taking a hand away from Billy only to turn off the burner on the kettle.

“I think that went better than last time,” he commented.

Billy gave a puff of warm air against his skin. “Marginally.”

“Squeaked by.”

Billy pulled back, taking both of Dom’s hands and started backing out of the kitchen towards the bedroom. “You started something I don’t believe we finished, earlier.”

“Mmm. That might have been in the plan too, if things went off well.”

“Dominic,” Billy cocked his head cheekily, “I recall something about telling you to stop, look around and just be in the moment, when you get to planning everything out.”

Dom stopped, glanced around the kitchenette, and broke away only long enough to grab the cookie tin. Billy arched a brow at it.

“How’s that for spontaneity?” Dom grinned smugly. “You wouldn’t kick me out for crumbs in the sheets.”

Billy looked stern, “Only as long as you share.”

Dom woke some hours later to a dark bedroom and cool, empty sheets where Billy should have been beside him. Stretching, he pushed away the covers and followed the dim square of a single lamp’s light out into the living room.

Billy sat at the desk in his kecks, staring up at the framed picture of Mount Ruapehu that hung there. A sheaf of papers lay by his left hand, the list of addresses from Dom’s open briefcase. In his right was a pen, pressed thoughtfully to his lips over a clean, blank unlined sheet of paper.

He started only a little when Dom put a hand on his bare shoulder, but relaxed when Dom pressed a lingering kiss to the same place.

“Thought I said when you’re ready, Bills.”

“I am.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Letters, fears, old friends and new ones.

_Saturday, October 14th_

“Billy, it’s…” Dom tried for the right words as he reread Billy’s familiar, looping script. “It’s…”

“Shite. It’s total shite is what it is,” he reached to try and snatch the paper back.

Dom held it away, “No, it’s good! It’s really very good. It’s to the point, you know… efficient.”

“Efficient? You make it sound like I’m cutting a business deal,” Billy leaned back from the table, which was strewn with dozens of similarly scrawled sheets. Some stopped mid-sentence and crumpled amongst the chair legs, and others were several pages long, rambling and smudged. The stale remains of a sandwich sat among them, while Dom’s plate was empty. Billy looked forlorn at the mess before him. “I don’t know. I just don’t know about this.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Dom tsked, “It’s really nice, Billy, aside from all that about not deserving it. You don’t need to write a book, just… this. Just let her know you’re still here.”

Billy propped his elbows on the table and his face in his hands with a pout of exasperation. “I don’t know if I said enough. Or said it right.”

Dom looked at him fondly. “You managed to say enough on those little postcards you gave me.”

“You were easy to write to.” The corner of Billy’s mouth lifted, just a little. “I didn’t muck up your life before I came running back looking for… Shite. I did exactly that, didn’t I?”

Dom grinned, “Turns out I didn’t mind so much.”

“This is so hard, Dommeh,” Billy sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, raking it up wildly. “Feels like I’m twenty again, only I don’t have the… the…” he tapped a finger on the table, searching for a word, “…the fucking _recklessness_ for it anymore.”

“Right. Telling some bloke you spent a week and a half with that you’d fly across the world if he called wasn’t the least bit reckless.”

“No,” Billy laughed humorlessly. “Doing it though, that was bloody insane.”

“Then it’s insane,” Dom pressed. “It can be worth it, right?”

Billy’s eyes went glazed, staring across the room and out the windows, where the afternoon sun glinted off the opposite building. “How do I explain, though? Where I’ve been, why I never came back? How do I tell her I’ve done nothing useful, that I never made anything of myself? How do I tell her about boxing for money and living in the Tube and… and…” his eyes darted back to Dom, “Christ, how do I even tell her I’m gay?”

Dom regarded him with fond amusement, “Same way you tell anybody.”

Bill ran both hands over his face and left them there, peeping at Dom through the spaces of his fingers like a kid watching a horror flick.

“You’ve never had to tell _anyone_?” Dom asked incredulously. Billy had never, in all the time they’d spent together, struck him as an in-the-closet sort of bloke.

Billy shook his head, staring blankly at the paper in front of him. “People that needed to know just found out, I guess. But that was all after I left.”

“Even Bean?”

“Oh, he figured it out,” Billy snickered a little, and his cheeks went pink as he ducked his head.

Dom grinned lecherously, “You made a move.”

“No,” Billy laughed a bit harder. “It was hot out on a construction site one day, and the fucker took his shirt off. Mind, this was when he was twenty-nine and his marriage was fucked, and there was an office full of birds across the street, getting just as nice an eyeful as I was. ‘Course he noticed. First the birds, then me.”

“What’d he do?”

Billy rested a rosy cheek on his hand and grinned at the long ago memory, “He took me to the pub and bought me a beer and threw me the biggest piss-taking I’ve ever had. And then everything went right back to normal.”

“Bean’s a great mate,” Dom smiled.

“Aye,” Billy murmured, then came back to the present. “But that doesn’t help me now, though. I don’t know how to tell her these things. It’s not the same as mates, Dom. I’ll have found her, only to lose her all over again.”

“You don’t know that. You never really know, Bills. Maybe she already knew it.”

Billy eyed him skeptically. “You didn’t grow up in Glasgow.”

“No. I grew up in Manchester, and went to Catholic school on top of it,” Dom countered. “Trust me, Bills, I’ve been there.”

Billy tapped his fingers on the letters absently. “How’d you tell them? Your parents? Your brother?”

“Matt knew,” Dom answered, reassuring where Billy was doubtful. “I don’t know how, but he figured it out before anyone. Even me.”

Billy looked at him quizzically, and Dom shrugged. “I remember this one time at school… I was eleven. Matt was fourteen, so he had classes in a different building, separated by a yard that had trees at the ends, and we’d have breaks out there. And I…” Dom darted a look at Billy, “I had a mate, then, my best mate. And we were always together, you know? Always. During breaks, we’d be round those big trees, climbing them, or sitting under them, just me and him.

“Once, there was a group of the older kids, skiving classes and smoking, and they found us. They started in on us for fun, taking the piss, calling us names and… daring us to kiss or some shite. I didn’t even really know, then. I just remember thinking it wouldn’t be so very awful, to kiss a friend I liked as much as him.”

Dom skipped ahead, “Matt came. Out of nowhere, really. They were his own mates too, and he gave them all a piece of hell for picking on me.”

He grinned at the memory of that day. “’Where do you lot get off fucking about my kid brother? If anyone gets the privilege, it’s me, not you load of wankers.’ That’s what he said to them, and then he lights up a fag, all casual-like and says to me, ‘Dom, any one of these pricks starts in on you again answers to me, all right?’”

Billy was smiling widely. “Matt was cool.”

“So cool,” Dom mused, “The way he said it… they weren’t angry with him, and at the same time they never messed with me again. I wanted to be like him, but… I was always Matt’s Kid Brother. It was bad enough we went to the same school where Dad taught, though. Matt only got around that bit getting into trouble. But I was the good son, I was Dad’s favourite.” There was a time when those words didn’t taste quite so bitter. Billy would ask him to elaborate, and hell, he had a right to know, having to meet the man in a few months.

“What was his name?” Billy asked, pushing in quite another direction altogether. “Your mate.”

“Cullin,” Dom said quietly, shifting a little. Now the tables were turned again, with Billy asking sticky questions without knowing boundaries. He changed the subject. “Anyway, I told my mum and dad before my last year at Uni.”

Billy must have caught Dom’s unease, the way he hesitated, but didn’t press the first subject. “Well, what happened? What’d they say?”

“Mum was Mum. She babbled on about having a feeling and worried herself into knots, but then she was fine. And Dad… well, Dad didn’t say anything. Still hasn’t.” Dom tried to dull the bite in his tone, but it didn’t really work. “Billy, he’s not going to be an easy…”

Billy dismissed this once again with a gentle shush. “I’m not afraid of your dad.” He closed his hands over Dom’s fingers on the table, meeting his eyes. It was stunning really, how in the midst of Billy’s most difficult fears, he still found the strength to reassure Dom against his own. Billy was remarkable that way. “And I can’t wait to meet this brother of yours.”

“He’s straight, Bills,” Dom deadpanned, and received a playful smack to the head for his cheek. “I don’t know if he’s going to come to Christmas, but I hope he does. I didn’t know I missed him until now.”

“Me either,” Billy murmured, looking down at his letter where it lay among the other attempts. “You really think this is okay?”

Dom saw a fervent need for approval in his eyes. “I think it’s enough. And it’s beautiful, Bills, it really is. Want me to type it for you?”

Billy stared down at his words. “No. No, I’ll… I’ll write it out.”

Dom paused, “Billy, there are about a hundred addresses in there. There are people who do this sort of thing for a living – finding people – that we can call–“

“No. I’ll do it,” Billy protested, looking overwhelmed but determined. “I’ll write it all out and send it to them all.”

Dom shook his head, bemused. “You don’t have to do it that way anymore. Just type it, and we’ll print as many copies as we need.”

“No,” Billy refused stubbornly. “It’s more personal, if I write it out. I want to. I don’t want to pay someone to clean up my own mess.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a glutton for punishment?” Dom chuckled as he got up from the table, tilting to kiss Billy's cheek as he took away their lunch plates. It would take Billy nearly as long to type as to write it out anyway, hunting and pecking for the right keys. It was an endless source of fun, the way Billy was utterly at ease with the world aside from the few modern upgrades he’d done without for most of his life. He still treated Dom’s little computer as though he might break it if he wasn’t fully supervised for every click. “Old man.”

“Hush, you.”

Dom ruffled Billy’s already wild hair. “I think Bean had a crush on you.”

“Fuck, Dom,” Billy blurted through giggles, “I want to be there when you accuse him of that, just to watch him sit on you until you can’t breathe. He’ll show you he has a crush.”

  
By noon the following day, the dining room table held five stacks of envelopes, addressed, sealed and stamped, a cardboard box of ‘mistakes’ to be recycled, and a rather dry ballpoint pen.

“That’s all of them?” Dom asked. He’d found an old shoebox that still had its lid in the top of his closet.

“Two hundred and twelve addresses,” Billy told him, rubbing the ache in his right hand from hours of writing longhand. “A lot more than a hundred, really. I won’t be playing guitar for a while. Or wanking.”

Dom feigned hurt, and began to shuffle the envelopes neatly into the shoebox. “Why the hell would you need to wank?”

“When you’re at work and I miss you.”

Such a blunt answer startled Dom into stillness, gaping at Billy. “I…”

“It’s all right,” Billy quickly amended, “I was only joking.”

“No, you’re… you’re right,” sitting down, Dom fidgeted. He knew he wasn’t home enough, he even still feared that Billy would grow bored of him because of it. “Cate wants me to cut back my hours, so… maybe…”

“You need to work, Dom,” Billy told him gently, and if he was at all put out by it, he didn’t look it. “You love your kids. They need you.”

Dom stared at the pile of letters in the shoebox and in his hand. Billy was working through something twenty years in the making, something Dom had pushed and pushed and pushed on until he’d yielded, and yet Dom was only here to support him evenings and weekends, and sometimes not even those.

He reach into his jumper and pulled off the _Manaia_ pendent, holding it out to Billy, who took it almost reluctantly, question and concern pinching his eyebrows. “Maybe I need to sort out my priorities, then.”

“Dommeh…”

“No,” Dom took the necklace and put it over Billy’s head. “It’s not mine. You told me that. You put it on me, and you can take it off. When you need it, take it, and I’ll be right here.”

The stunned look on Billy’s face melted to a besotted adoration, and then he was reaching out to bring Dom close by the neck, foreheads touching. “When did you get to be such a romantic?”

Dom nuzzled Billy’s pointy nose with his own, “I think this bloke I met rubbed it off on me,” he tilted to press a warm kiss to Billy’s lips, and it was answered gladly.

“I mean it, Bills,” he murmured when the pulled back, “If you need me, you've got to tell me. Don’t hold it in until it bursts. It gets us into too much trouble.”

“Okay,” Billy gave Dom’s own pendant a little tug.

Dom kissed Billy’s forehead and then rose, shuffling the rest of the letters into the box. “Get your coat. And mine too.”

“Where are we going?”

Dom grinned, shutting the lid safely over the box. “I’ve got an idea.”

Striking out in the crisp wind and sunlight, Dom led the way on a random route up the Forest Hills sidewalks. The snow had melted; only fleeting piles remaining where the city plows had pushed it from the streets. Billy had the shoebox tucked under one arm and Dom’s hand laced in the other, his palm a knot of warmth inside the cold nipping at their knuckles.

When Dom reached his destination and stopped, leaning on the object of his search and turning to grin. Billy looked at him like he was off his rocker. “I was just going to take them to the post office.”

“Yeah, but this is so much more _you_ , don’t you think?” He brushed a few dead leaves caught in the mouth of the old blue street side letterbox, obviously disused in the age of email and text messages. “Think of it, Bills. All those letters and so many old letterboxes in New York City. You’d never know which one held the right envelope.”

Dom knew he had him when the grin rose to Billy’s eyes. “You are completely fucking mad, Dominic.”

Billy opened the shoebox, and drew out a letter from the top of a stack, but once it was in his hand and in frightening vicinity of a post box from which he could not get it back, doubt struck his eyes.

Dom struggled fiercely with himself to hold his tongue, not to push, not even to encourage. This was Billy’s choice, and if he wanted to go back on it and scratch the whole idea was something Dom would not hound him about. Not anymore.

He didn’t realize he’d closed his eyes to keep himself from interfering until he heard the squeak and groan of old metal hinges, and his eyes popped open to see the white letter slip into darkness and out of sight.

Billy looked slightly shell shocked at what he’d done, but Dom let out the breath he’d been holding and put a tight arm around him. “See? It only gets easier from here.”

“Does it?” Billy wondered, still staring at the closed mouth of the letterbox as though he might wrench it open and dive in.

“Tampering with the US Mail is a federal offense. They’ll deport you, and then you’ll be that much closer already.” He grinned cheekily and left a peck a cold, rosy cheek. “It does get easier. Come on, we have a lot more to go.”

It took the remainder of the afternoon and several trips on the subways, visiting every borough and seeking out every old blue post box they could find, until the shoebox was empty. Billy had left letters in front of the Bronx Zoo, the Botanical Gardens, round the corner from the Brooklyn Bridge, by Coney Island, where glimpse of the nearby racetrack had given Billy a moment’s hesitation and a sudden fierce determination without any coaxing from Dom. He’d left some in Chinatown and SoHo, and Chelsea, one in Times Square, outside the Empire State Building, and around the perimeter of Central Park. The last he’d left outside of the Cloisters, where Billy gazed up at the old stonework as though remembering something he’d not seen in ages.

It was nearly dark by the time the made their way back to the very first letterbox on the corner, and the crisp breeze of the autumn day had fallen to bitter cold. Stopping to gaze at it, Dom chafed Billy’s hands in his own.

“You’re cold, Bill. Let’s get some coffee, eh?” Dom nodded to the Starbucks nearby.

Sat at the familiar table with hot coffee and a low bustle of patrons, Billy continued to glance out the window at the letterbox.

“It’s not going to come flying out, you know,” Dom chuckled, reaching across to stroke the pink scar across the back of Billy’s knuckle.

Billy allowed it for a few moments before turning his hand over in Dom’s fingers. “I know. This just feels so… odd. Final. It’s done and I can’t take it back and I can’t run from it either. Not unless I…” He stopped short, looking angry.

“What, Billy?”

“Well, it’s your address, isn’t it?” Billy said to his coffee, eyes darting up fleetingly at Dom and then back, almost shameful.

Dom tightened his fingers. Billy could only run from the outcome of the letters if he ran from Dom as well. It was a possibility that Dom knew was there. It always would be, even when things were good, as good as they were tonight. “Our address,” he said firmly. “You made the first move. You made your choice, just like with me. Now you just have to wait for Maggie to come across a vintage guitar somewhere.”

Billy laughed, shaking his head, “You and that notion of fate, Dom, I don’t–"

“So I suppose the roses did the trick.”

Dom blinked up at the source of the interruption, standing beside the table, surprised to find a familiar face. “You!”

The old man barked a laugh as Dom stood up, “Me. God forbid. Find me a chair, my lad, this is my table you lot are occupying and I’m set in my ways.”

Dom gave him his own chair and then pulled one over to tuck in beside Billy, who had reached across the table to shake the old man’s hand.

“Actually, Dom’s rather shite at flowers, but he managed to get back in my good graces anyway. Billy Boyd, sir.”

The old man shook it with gleaming eyes on Dom, who flushed. “Did he? You’re a tolerant man, then. Bill, you said? My ears are going. He looked like he’d been kicked out for sure, last I saw him. Dom, was it?”

“Dom Monaghan, sir. And thank you. You know, for–“

“Shut up, I didn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know,” the old man grumbled, “And none of this ‘sir’ rubbish either, I’m no Lord of the Manor. Name’s Ian. Did you know any Holm's back in England?”

Dom looked at Billy, who did the same, “Erm, no… I don’t think so.”

“No? Hmm. Old name, out of Scotland, you know, far removed. My Bea was a Gilbert, herself,” he sipped his coffee and sighed. “I went to the doctor the other day.”

Dom shared a glance with Billy again. The old man, Ian, seemed at once fiercely intelligent, but at times lost in his own head, just as he had before. Dom had to wonder if it was a loss of function from age or simply grief for a companion he’d had for so long.

“Are you ill?” Billy asked, concern in his tone.

Ian laughed, “Am I ill? I’m _old_ , lad, just old. Same old complaints. I wasn’t going to bother, but some young tosser yanked me out from in front of a bus, so I figured I’d better be certain it was worth his time. Who’s blood was that, hmm? You look a right state better than last time.” He squinted at the two of them.

Billy looked to Dom for explanation. Dom cleared his throat, squeezing Billy’s hand on his thigh in apology for having divulged this to a perfect stranger, “It was… it was Bill’s, on my shirt. Remember, I said we had an argument and he punched the wall? Cut himself a bit, that’s all.”

Ian looked appraisingly at Billy for a few moments, “Well, that was stupid, wasn’t it?”

Billy looked struck, and then belatedly he laughed. “Yeah, it was, at that.”

“I expect you’ve sorted it, then?” Ian asked, looking for all things like a father reprimanding a pair of siblings.

“Yes,” Dom answered. “Repaired and forgotten.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, no wonder you’re a bundle of nerves,” Ian rolled his eyes at the ceiling, “Never forgotten. Learned from, I should hope. History bloody repeats itself if you don’t pay it any attention. My Bea once turned me out on my arse when I’d been at the pub for a good sight too long, said I could go back and see if they’d have me sleep on the steps if I wanted to drink the evenings away. You’d imagine a cold night would have taught me, but noooo. I did it again, and she turned me out again, threatened to take up our Lissa and Barnaby and buy a ticket on one of those aeroplanes away back to England, eh? Taught me to pay attention.”

Dom smiled through this story, and Billy latched right in, “Lissa and Barnaby?”

Ian sipped his coffee and nodded. “My children. They’re grown now, older than you, I expect, have their own children. But I don’t remember their names. They’re written in the Christmas cards we get. My Bea puts them on the mantelpiece and the piano.” His smile dropped away, and he shook his head, “No. No, she doesn’t. She did, though. Cancer. Very quick.”

Dom watched the old man speak. His eyes were sharp and his body still relatively spry, but grief settled on him like sacks of bricks. He was alone when he never had been, and had family, but apparently rarely saw them. He seemed desperately lonely. Dom looked at Billy, whose gaze seemed to mirror his own thoughts. “Ian, would you like to come round to dinner sometimes? At our place?”

The old man glanced at him, “Oh, I don’t want to impose… you’re young…”

“It’s not an imposition,” Dom chuckled, “Just a good dinner, and friends to talk to.”

Ian thought about it, “I think I should like that. Things change, this city’s changed. People don’t like to talk much.”

  
They’d left Ian to his coffee after collecting his phone number and address, which was only a few blocks farther from the coffee shop than their own.

“I like him,” Billy said, as they climbed the steps of their building.

“Me too,” Dom agreed, “I don’t know if he’s well, but he seems like he could use a friend or two. He helped me out when I needed it.”

“I think you helped him first,” Billy pointed out as they climbed the stairwell, “You’ve got a knack for helping people, Dommeh.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A day in the life.

_Monday, October 30th_

      
 _It was summer bright. Dom was playing chess with Billy and Matt in the middle of Central Park, while his mum read the_ Times _and his dad fed the pigeons nearby._

 _“Look, Dom, this bird here,” his father called brightly, “See how he’s got white spots? It’s a recessive genetic mutation, so both the parents had to carry the gene…”_

 _Meanwhile Matt had checked both Dom’s and Billy’s kings in one strategic move and with a story of how snakes represent creation and destruction in dozens of cultures and religions. Billy had listened with fascinated interest._

 _Forgetting the pigeons, Dom contemplated the chessboard, trying to figure out how to move his king out of danger, but then grew preoccupied with the logistics of a three-sided chessboard. He knew the rules of the game, but this board was built for three players, and it followed that three-sided chess must have a whole different set of rules he wasn’t aware of._

 _His father threw a last bread crust to the birds. “You’ve been taught the rules a thousand times.”_

 _“But the board is–"_

 _“The rules don’t change. Use your head.”_

 _Dom bit his lip and stared at the board. There was nowhere to go._

 _Billy made a theatrical move in which his bishop swept down the board and planted itself in the offending queen’s way, protecting his own king as well as Dom’s in the same move. He hit the dinger triumphantly._

 _“That’s illegal,” Dom’s father scrutinized, leaning over the board now._

 _“No it isn’t!” Dom retorted sharply, followed a half-second later by Matt’s, “Only according to you.”_

 _“Don’t sass your father, Mattie,” Dom’s mum chided quietly, turning the page of her newspaper._

 _Austin gave Billy a look of condescending patience, a teacher’s look. “Chess is a game of war, boy, you don’t sacrifice yourself to one enemy for another. You still lose.”_

 _“He’s not_ my _enemy,” Dom spluttered._

 _“You know the rules,” his dad said with finality, “He’s out of the game. You lose.”_

 _Billy gave Dom a look of utter devastation and walked away, his tuxedo faded and torn._

 _“Now Dominic, that bought you time to beat your brother. Go on now.”_

 _Dom stared at Billy’s dead king, lying prostrate with Dom’s still standing fearlessly beside it. “I can’t.”_

 _“But you can, Dommie,” his mother called from the bench, “You’re a good boy. You were always your father’s favourite.” The front-page headline read in bold letters,_ Fallout Imminent _. The sound of a countdown began, a rising repetitive sound of dread._

 _“Bugger that, then, he wins. He always does,” scoffed Matt, knocking down his own perfectly safe king defiantly and grabbing his rucksack. “Mum, don’t wait up.” He stalked off toward a rusting ‘82 Citroën parked on the grass beside a water fountain._

 _Dom’s dad sat down, clearing the pieces and setting them back up. He pointedly kept the white pieces for himself, while the board morphed into a perfectly normal, two-player chessboard while Dom wasn’t looking. “You’ve been taught to play, but I’ll show you again until you understand, Dominic,” his dad spoke in his careworn tone, “Until you get it right.”_

 _“I don’t want to play anymore,” Dom mumbled petulantly. The infernal countdown continued, louder now. His mother only rustled the paper, but the headline had gotten bigger._

 _“You’ll play, and you’ll learn to follow the…” His father’s mouth kept moving, but the incessant beeping drowned it out._  


“Dommeh, the bloody snooze… lemmee up.”

Dom threw his arm back to smack the alarm, scrunching his nose and making an infantile noise from between Billy’s shoulder blades.

Billy stopped struggling with an airy little laugh and a sleepy, “Morning.”

Dom grumbled again. It was way, _way_ too early for a Monday. Clinging to the furnace of warmth he was spooned around, Dom tightened his arms, mooshed his face into Billy’s skin and inhaled the sleep-heavy scent of him. He was awake now, and the impending dread of the dream began to loosen in his chest.

Billy wriggled around until he was facing Dom, smiling wryly, “You were dreaming. You mumbled something.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah,” Billy chuckled, “Sounded like ‘don’t wanna play.’”

Dom cuddled up closer. “I was playing chess with Matt.”

Billy laughed out loud. “Of all the things to dream about. _Chess_.”

“What do you dream about, then?” Dom retorted.

“Not chess, that’s for sure,” Billy rolled to his back and stretched ferociously. “So why are we awake at…” he lifted to look over Dom at the clock, “… five-thirty in the bloody morning, again?”

Dom grumbled again at the reminder, squinching up at the thought and rolling atop Billy to muffle his face from the still orange nighttime glow in Billy’s neck and shoulder. “I am awake because some fucker scheduled a hearing at arse o’clock AM,” he made sure to whine, “And I have to go.”

“Who is it?” Billy asked, his hands kneading Dom’s shoulder blades and sliding firmly down either side of his spine, doing a beautiful job as a combination mattress and masseuse. Dom relaxed dreamily.

“Dommeh.”

“Wha’?”

Billy giggled, dumping Dom back over on the mattress and whipping the blankets off. Dom shrieked piteously, groping to burrow back under the covers. “I’m naked here!”

“This I can see,” Billy poked his belly, “Who is it for? The court thing?”

“Oh. Justin and Ryan,” Dom stared at the ceiling and scrubbed at his face, “Their parents are messed up, so, they’re looking like a long… long term sort of thing. Longer than it’s already been, anyway.”

Billy’s fingers smoothed across his cheek and down, leaning in for a tender, sweet kiss. Dom kissed harder and deeper, pushing him over on his back and turning it into a Saturday morning sort of kiss, which Billy submitted to with a lovely little noise.

Dom’s fingers were just sneaking towards a nipple when the snooze alarm began beeping once again. Giving a roar of discontent, he pounded the thing off while Billy snickered.

“Right, go on, laugh it up,” Dom growled, sitting up where he straddled Billy and folding his arms to pout. “Just because _you_ don’t have to get up until a leisurely three hours from now to go strum guitars all day long.”

“Oh, I know,” Billy lounged decadently, folding his arms behind his head and snuggling back into the soft pillows, “You’d best go jump in the shower, love. You’ll be late.”

Dom gave him a snort of disgust and crawled off the bed towards the bathroom. “The arsecrack of dawn is not the time of day to test my tolerance at having a kept man, Bills.”

As the door shut, he heard Billy shout, “I want dinner reservations at the Four Seasons or I’m leaving you!”

In the shower, as the hot water and the fresh shampoo scent began to revive him, he grinned, enjoying how easy it had been to joke and play with Billy in the last few weeks. He smiled more, and the edges around him had softened, the sort of softness that had all but captured Dom back on the boat. He wished he could just blow off the whole idea of work today. The weekends simply weren’t long enough.

Today was set to be a long one though, and with a sigh he toweled off, shaved, brushed his teeth and fussed with his hair more than usual.

Billy was not in bed when he returned to the bedroom, and instead the smell of fresh brewing coffee and possibly something else drifted through the flat. Dom pulled out a more formal-than-usual suit out of the wardrobe, a charcoal one with a starched shirt and a blue tie.

Buttoning up his cuffs, he emerged to find Billy at the stove, fully dressed and concentrating on whatever he was cooking.

“You know you didn’t have to get up,” Dom said.

Billy’s eyes did a slight double take when he glanced up, tracing Dom’s frame before he turned back to his pans, poking at their contents, “I know.”

Eying the clock, Dom draped the suit jacket over the back of the sofa and went to his desk, waking the computer from its sleep. The dream had reminded him to check his email, and what he expected to find was there: two tickets to London from the travel agent for the holidays. Dom drummed his fingers nervously as he read and reread the info. It meant this holiday was set, a holiday with Billy, but also with his parents, and his father’s scrutiny.

Billy appeared at Dom’s shoulder, shuffling again through last week’s mail in the basket. Dom felt a bittersweet twinge at this newly acquired habit. It had been more than two weeks since the letters had been sent, surely long enough to cross an ocean by now. But it had been years since Dom had last sent actual paper post back home, so he had no idea what sort of time frame to expect a response. He’d kicked himself thoroughly for not having set Billy up with an email account of his own to be included in the letters, and had done as soon as he’d finished talking Billy into it, shamelessly using Elijah and Bean as an excuse to have one. Billy still begrudged the thing, as he did anything to do with the computer.

But even Billy recognized travel plans when he saw them on the screen, his hands abandoning the post and kneading Dom’s shoulders from behind the chair. “Did Fran get you a deal?”

“Pretty good one, yeah.” Dom tilted his head back. He could see Billy calculating how much he’d need to work in order to make up the cost. He could toss another kept man joke in there, but knew he’d risk getting thwapped for it in the presence of actual large purchases that Billy simply couldn’t afford on his own.

Billy eventually glanced down and smiled upside down at him, tugging on his ears and dropping a peck on his forehead. “Come eat some breakfast.”

Dom climbed onto the barstool as Billy poured him a mug of coffee, then went back to his pans, divvying out two plates of eggs and potatoes. He served one to Dom and pushed a fork across. Standing on the opposite side of the countertop, he ate a forkful from his own plate, watching for Dom to do the same. Dom took up his fork and took a bite under the inspection.

“You didn’t have to make breakfast either,” Dom mumbled after several minutes, when his plate was nearly clean. He rarely ate more than toast in the mornings before work, but it was good, however much Billy said he couldn’t cook.

“Aye,” Billy grinned, licking yolk from both sides of his own fork. “Even I’ve been taught to do a decent fry-up in dire survival situations.”

“Viggo?”

Billy shook his head.

“Bean?”

“Nah. Gran,” he took Dom’s empty plate and swiftly scrubbed out the pans, leaving them to dry on the rack.

Dom warmed through at these tidbits from Billy’s past, now dropped almost as casually as they had been ages ago, only now they had so much more depth.

A thermos of coffee appeared before him. Dom stood to take it, seeing that Billy had also pulled both of their coats from the closet and draped them over the arm of the sofa by the door.

“Aren’t you going to back to bed?”

Billy shook his head with a smile, holding Dom’s jacket out for him to slip into. “Thought I’d walk you down and go in early myself. Alejandro will be there.” He fastened Dom’s collar button and cinched the tie up properly before using it to pull him close and giving him what was definitely a Saturday morning sort of kiss.

“You look far too gorgeous for legal proceedings. Wearing this suit to court? Really, _this_ one?”

Dom glanced down at himself, realizing exactly which suit he’d picked out, the same one he’d worn the night they met. He shrugged, “Well, you know, it has such a good track record. I thought I might catch myself a lawyer on the side.”

Billy tightened his grip with a feral smile, “Now, Dominic, you know how I get when other people touch my things.”

“Now, William, I thought we were working on sharing,” Dom mimicked.

Giving this some thought, Billy gave a noncommittal shrug, “Fine, the lawyer can have the suit,” he held Dom’s overcoat out, “ _After_ I’ve taken it off you.”

“Fair enough,” Dom returned the favour with Billy’s coat. He knew Billy was only going into Alejandro’s early to maintain their new ritual of walking to the subway station together, and because it gave him a reason to watch the guitar master at work before the shop opened and Billy had to mind the front.

And yet, old Holly still sat decrepit as ever on the stand in the corner of the living room, gathering dust. Dom opened his mouth to ask why, but closed it again. Things were good. Better than good. If Billy was waiting, then he must have a reason.

Outside, the barely-there dawn would take some time to penetrate down to street level. Manholes steamed in the damp streets and their breath hung long in the air as they made their way down the sidewalk. Dom tried to imagine a New York summer with Billy in it. They could get dressed up and go to a show, get fabulous food from the street vendor carts, go to the various festivals and have picnics in Central Park…

The thought brought the dream back, just vague flashes of imagery now. Chess pieces carved of stones, obsidian, marble and jade, and the chessboard triangular instead of square, its middle less eloquent strategy and more free-for-all warfare. The look on his father’s face, the cold disappointment he always had when Dom hadn’t measured up. Billy’s emotional destruction as he was turned away.

“Dommeh?”

“Hmm?”

“The kids… what will happen to them?”

“What?” Dom broke from his thoughts to find Billy’s face rosy with cold as they walked.

“Those boys,” Billy clarified. “What will your hearing do for them?”

Dom sighed. The boys’ parents were junkies, and both had already been found to be using straight out of the state-funded detox program, and their grandmother was putting up a fight for custody even though she simply didn’t have the means or the ability to care for herself, much less two boys. Dom and Sean’s statements today would likely be the first step in determining whether or not Justin and Ryan would be placed permanently in the custody of the state. It wasn’t an answer Billy would like to hear. “It’ll decide whether or not they stay in foster care for awhile.”

“And then what? Will they get to go home?”

Dom counted the cracks on the sidewalk. “I don’t know.”

  
 _2:47pm_

  
"…Under the circumstances, it is this court's decision for the children, Justin James Fischer and Ryan Stephen Fischer, to remain in the custody of the State of New York pending the rehabilitation and suitability assessment of the natural parents or relatives seeking legal guardianship. This case will reconvene in six months’ time. Court is dismissed, thank you." The judge shuffled his papers and the room sprung to movement. Dominic gathered his coat and briefcase and waited for Sean, who had jumped at a chance to talk to the district attorney.

"Mr. Monaghan! Excuse me, Mr. Monaghan…"

Dom turned to see Justin's foster parents, Sarah Cunningham and her husband made their way to him down the aisle.

"I just… we just wanted to thank you personally for everything you've done. Mr. Astin as well," she squeezed his hand emphatically.

“It was… you’re welcome,” Dom dropped his gaze diffidently. "Justin's at school, then?" he asked for propriety, already knowing the answer.

"Yes. We'll need to get going pretty quick to pick him up, Mark," she said to her husband, but quickly turned back. "You placed Justin with us, Mr. Monaghan, so we wanted to talk to you first, but we… Mark and I, we wanted to ask you about adopting him… permanently.”

Dom studied the woman’s sweet, flushed face. The Cunninghams were a new foster with Justin being their first. The placement had almost been indiscriminate. He’d had to find a foster quickly after the seizure had been pushed through on exigent circumstances due to Ryan’s health, and the Cunningham’s had been a recent addition to the foster list in the county. It had been understood as temporary at the time, since Ryan’s fragile health was top priority. But by then, Billy had dropped back into his life, and Dom let the time fly away without looking back. So Justin had stayed with Sarah and Mark.

Dom had known their type from the get-go. Unable to have children of the own, they’d welcomed Justin into their beautiful home in Kew Gardens, complete with a back yard tire swing and a golden retriever named Jack. They’d even been adamant about getting him into a private Montessori school, though Dom had encouraged them to let him finish the year in the public school so as not to uproot him, and to keep them from spending the money before anything was set. They’d taken to the boy immediately, and Justin had settled in better than Dom had hoped, so he only felt a little guilty.

“I can put you in touch with the adoption coordinators,” he nodded, “I have to tell you though, it’s still very early in this case, it’s still uncertain.”

“We talked about that,” Mark Cunningham nodded, “We’re willing to go through with it, whatever the circumstances.”

They promised to call to discuss more thoroughly and bid him goodbye with more profuse thanks.

He watched them greet the second foster family in the courtroom on their way out. The Chavez’s were steadfast, a foster that could be and had often been counted on, and had come to be on close terms with everyone in the Queens office. An older couple, they had taken in the majority of children with special needs, not least Justin’s baby brother Ryan. They had been Shiloh’s last foster as well, as short a stay as it had been.

"Dominic," Maria Chavez hugged him as he came up. “You did good up there.”

"Hey you," Dom smiled. He arranged his smile far goofier for the baby. "Hi, Ryan!"

Ryan whimpered and hid his screwed-up face in Maria's shoulder. Dom pouted. The baby had been fussy throughout the day, in and out of the courtroom, though his medical problems were a key part of the hearing and had made a clear impression.

"He may be getting a cold, I think," she apologized. "We'll be heading home for a warm bath and a nap."

"For you or him?" Dom joked. Ryan was a continually sickly baby, and a cold was reason enough to worry a little. The boy was over a year old now, but still so small and skinny he hardly looked it. He had a weak heart and a weaker liver, testament to his natural mother’s drug use when she was pregnant.

"Ready?" Sean had returned to gather his own things from the benches. Dom nodded, saying goodbye to Maria and Ryan before they made their way to the parking garage.

"That was longer than I thought it'd be," Sean pulled the car out on the way back to the office.

Dom nodded. It had taken ages, and he was glad it was over for now. "The Cunningham's are looking at adopting."

"I thought they might," Sean nodded as he drove.

Dom considered the idea. They would have to wait at least the six months to see if the boys’ parents or grandmother cleaned up, and if they did (however unlikely it seemed right now), there could be a long road of court battles ahead. And then there was the issue of Ryan and his health and recovery. Would the Cunninghams take him as well, with his possible long-term prognosis, or would he ultimately be placed somewhere else? That was just as unlikely. As nice as the Cunninghams were, they wanted a perfect family.

“Oi, pull over, let me out,” he said spontaneously to Sean. “There’s a parking lot right there by the subway, that’s perfect.”

“Why?”

Dom smiled, “Just tell Cate I’m shaving a bit off.”

"What, you got a date?" Sean joked. It was an old joke that didn’t exactly work anymore, and the tension it raised sat clear between them in the car. Sean pursed his lips and stared resolutely through the windshield, pulling into the parking lot of a bank that Dom had indicated.

Dom eyed him as he collected his things and sighed, "When are you going to get over this?"

"What?"

"Billy. Jesus, you hold a grudge like a big girl," Dom grumbled, tugging his tie to its usual looseness, "We had a fight and we made up. If I hadn't called you that night…. It wasn't even your business, so where do you come off–"

" _You're_ my business, Dominic. You’re my best friend. I love you," Sean snapped, glaring at him for a second before looking at a Beamer pulling in the space in front of him. He pursed his mouth in his typical annoyed-Sean way, fussing with the radio station. "I’ve known you for years, and he’s only been around for a couple of months.”

“So you have authority over me by length of acquaintance?”

“No!” Sean stuttered loudly, “No. I’m just saying a couple of months doesn’t make this serious.”

“Oh, but you and I, we’re serious,” Dom gestured between them, “I dunno, Sean, what would Christine say?”

“That’s not what I meant. You know nothing about this guy. He doesn’t even have a real job, he’s just mooching off–”

“Right, because Officer Sean has to be absolutely positively sure of how deep the pool is before he lets anyone else dive in,” Dom fired right back. “For someone who takes his precious time being sure of a thing, you were quick to tar him with the first bloody brush you found. And he does have a job. Maybe it’s not white collar enough for you, but the money’s still green.”

Having nothing to say to that, Sean glared flatly at the radio, trying to get a certain station to come in.

Dom shook his head peevishly, “Christ, what happened between you two, man? Ever since that day at the stable you’ve been all up in arms about him, and he’s telling me things he’s never talked about and writing his sister and–”

“He wrote to his sister?” Sean interrupted.

“Yeah, wrote to her and even sent it. I’ve pretty much surrendered the mail key to him,” Dom answered, finding Sean’s eyes. “I didn’t know I had to check in with you whenever we have a breakthrough, but he talks to me, okay? Things he says he’s never talked about to anyone. He’s got problems he’s working through. We’re working through. Who doesn’t?”

Sean stopped messing with the stereo and sat still for a minute, before blowing out an exhale of defeat. “You always were good at getting the kids to talk about that stuff.”

Dom’s indignation dissipated, and he shrugged, “Yeah well, it’s a bit harder when it’s your grown-up boyfriend. Hell of a lot more baggage to sort through.”

Sean raised a brow at him, “Not _my_ boyfriend.”

Dom grinned, “Nooo. All mine. You two will have to share me, though. But I’ve got plenty of lovin’ to go around.”

“Jesus, Dommie,” Sean ruffled his hair firmly until it was a fierce mess, “I never would have pegged you for such a sap.”

Dom ignored how true that was and got out of the car. “You’re not going to tell me what happened, are you?” he asked through the open door, “At the stables?"

Sean avoided his gaze for a bit before scrubbing at his own hair. “You haven’t asked him that, have you?”

Dom blinked and looked away.

Sean sighed, “I dunno, Dommie. I’m just trying to look out for you. You know me.”

Dom nodded, “I know you.”

“Close the door, you idiot. I didn’t pull over to heat the whole frickin’ neighborhood.”

  
 _4:00pm_

  
Dom was distinctly out of place in this part of Corona. More so today, wearing one of his sharpest suits and generally looking like your average businessman who’d got off at the wrong subway station. But that feeling had long worn off, ignoring jeers from loiterers and waving to cops driving by that he knew on a first name basis. Dom was as familiar with this neighborhood as he was with Forest Hills. Corona was the home of the best pizzeria in Queens, and it happened that Dom was tight with the assistant manager. Assuming he _was_ still the assistant manager.

He stepped into Angelo’s and up to the take-out counter. “Can I get a large with everything but onions? And hey, is Ricardo still around?”

“Damn, who called in the FBI?” a familiar voice rang out.

“Ricky!” Dom beamed, bumping knuckles and shoulders with the young man.

“Where you been, man? What’s all this?” Ricardo gestured at Dom’s get-up, “You got a promotion. Secret Service, Jason Bourne style.”

“Not quite. I was at the courthouse all day,” Dom groused, “So you’re still here, yeah? How long before you get set up at Columbia?”

“Two more months,” Ricky grinned, though it foundered at a group of thugs across the street out the pizzeria window.

“Any grief?” Dom asked, inclining his head at them.

“Always,” Ricky nodded, “Columbia though, man. I can’t wait. With my record I can’t set a toe over the line. Not even a kegger.”

“You better not,” Dom grinned, “I can’t get on your back anymore, you know, you’re eighteen. But I will tell your Aunt.”

“Cold threats, eh? I’ll keep my nose clean, promise. Spent long enough catching _that_ kind of hell,” Ricky laughed, “You ought to go see her, though. She likes you. Always thought Sean was uptight.”

“If he gets any tighter he’ll turn inside out. No change there,” Dom muttered. “Do you know what field you want to go into?”

“Neurology, maybe. Maybe pediatrics. Maybe both, I don’t know. I figure if I get through the first year or two, I’ll be gold.”

“You will,” Dom nodded, noticing the main manager of Angelo’s watching from the back, “Look, I better not hold you up. I’m just getting something to take home.”

“No worries. Don’t work too hard,” Ricky grinned, “And put your cash away, man, your pie’s on the house as long as I’m around.”

“Nah, your boss is watching, I don’t mind–”

“Don’t make me break that promise,” Ricky grinned.

“Thanks, mate.”

“No worries.”

With a final handshake and his dinner under an arm, Dom made for the subway station that would take him home.

Even coming off of seeing one of his successful cases, the dread was already building in his gut as he rounded a familiar corner. Yes, he knew this neighborhood too well, knew the trees, the landmarks, and the less than enjoyable memories they dredged up as he walked past a large block of run-down apartments. He was sure the buzz-lock was still as broken as it had always been, and the names on each button still there from years ago. Only the graffiti changed regularly.

He slowed at the end of the block and glanced up at the second story window on the end. The screen was mangled and the glass cracked along the bottom pane as though a stray baseball might have hit it. That was new. Perhaps no one lived there anymore. Perhaps whoever had lived there after Shiloh had found a better place like Ricardo had, Dom’s one success story with a future he was privy to, if only as a friend.

Just as his hopes were up, the face of a small black boy popped up behind the broken pane, looking down with the simple curiosity of a child, too young to know it wasn’t polite to stare.

Dom swallowed and stepped up his pace. Because that was the crux of the whole fucking thing.

Unless someone or something was reported, he never knew what went on behind closed doors. It wasn’t his place to know. His job depended on nosy neighbors, vengeful ex’s, drug raids, and bad smells. It knew no social boundaries, from a poor boy in government housing to a socialite’s bitter divorce, to a filthy secret hidden away in a basement like a prisoner right in Dom’s own backyard.

It was like the subway, where a very young, very pregnant girl at the other end of the car reread what looked like a pay stub with dismay written all over her face, but Subway Etiquette demanded that Dom let her be anonymous and find her own way, because it was entirely possible that she had plenty of help already and to assume she didn’t was insulting. People, especially kids, didn’t talk unless he could coax their secrets from them, and that was an opportunity he didn’t have unless a wrong had already been suspected, and it all took so much time that it was sometimes too late. And Too Late was not good enough. Too Late was exactly the same thing as failure.

When he came to his own building he felt as though he’d spent a whole day fighting tooth and nail for nothing but a free box of pizza, and the ache of fatigue settled in his bones as he trudged up six flights and pushed open his door.

Billy was there, holding up a carton from where he sat on the sofa, others scattered on the coffee table. “I got curry.”

“I got pizza,” Dom said, holding up his own box and tossing his coat over the chair. It slipped off, and he was too tired to care.

“We can trade,” Billy smiled, his face bright and soft in the fading afternoon light.

Dom plopped the pizza box on the coffee table and himself on the cushions, eating the forkful of curry Billy offered up over a cupped hand. It was his favorite dish from Darshan’s, and Billy knew, as well as he knew Billy liked pizza with everything but onions. Taking the carton from Billy and setting it on top of the pizza box, Dom wrapped both arms around him and breathed him in.

Billy said nothing, asked no questions and demanded no answers, but held him just the same as the food went cold.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorting through losses and gains.

_Sunday, November 5th_

“I want to thank you for doing this,” Ian said, easing himself down in a nearby chair with the distinctive lean and grimace an old back complaint.

“It’s really no trouble,” Dom scanned the back of an Ella Fitzgerald record, putting it on one of the three piles around him on Ian’s sitting room rug.

Ian lived in a two-storey brownstone a few blocks away in a neighborhood that had sprung up a century ago. The houses here were all in various states of remodel or repair, with Ian’s looking almost entirely unaltered, its painted eaves and shutters rather chipped and weathered and bare hedges tangled and overgrown, framed by two massive honeylocust trees that had littered the yard with fallen pods. Dom loved it immediately. Ian had returned their dinner invitation in kind a few nights after they’d had him over, and after he’d apologized too often for the mess – going on about how he’d tried to go through it after Bea had died and never managed to accomplish anything – they’d offered to help sort through several decades worth of odds and ends.

The house was filled with dated furniture and had the musty smell of old, used up potpourri. There were knick-knacks, dozens of framed and faded photographs, plates in curios and on the mantelpiece; the sort of things that appealed to elderly ladies and were tolerated on the whole by their husbands. It reminded Dom of his grandmother’s home, which had always been a place of both spoilage and torment. Often he’d been in trouble for breaking things he didn’t have the good sense to leave alone. As a boy he couldn’t help himself, his curiosity had always got the better of him, and doing this gave him the opportunity to satisfy twitchy fingers. “Billy and I don’t mind helping out.”

“I meant you in particular, my lad, though I’m sure I’ll be grateful to him after he’s through making a racket up there,” Ian grumbled, pointing a gnarled finger upward at the thumping and hammering above, where Billy was taking the opportunity of a cold but cloudless day to repair a leak in Ian’s roof. “I suspect your people skills make you good at this sort of thing.”

“I don’t know that it helps much,” Dom shrugged, boxing up the piles around him.

Ian chuckled, “No? You’re a modest one, pulling the likes of me out of the street and listening to me ramble, when you’ve your own problems. Look at this, eh?” He held out an old faded photograph of a boy on a bicycle. “Barnaby. Got himself a paper route when he was ten, saved up for a year to buy that bike. He was a good kid. Does well for his family now, I should guess. I don’t doubt you had something else in mind as a boy.”

Finished with the records, Dom sat on the piano bench nearby to look, “I always figured I’d be a teacher, like my dad. Only he wanted me to be a professor at one of the big universities. You know, the sort that get grants and discover something really groundbreaking. What he never got to do, in other words.”

“’Course, he did,” Ian commented, dropping the picture back into a cardboard box of old photos at his feet. “It’s what every father wants of his boy, eh, to be better than he was? I’d no intentions my son being a janitor or fishmonger, or any of the other rotten jobs I’ve had over the years. Not that I know what the bloody hell he does do these days, computer engineering, or whatever it is. Not all of us end up where we thought we would, of course.”

“No,” Dom agreed quietly. Ian got up, muttering something about drinks, and Dom scanned the room. He’d gone though most of the downstairs of the house, boxing up things to be stored for a summer yard sale, things to throw out, and things that might be worth something at antique shops. One box of the records he thought he and Billy could run down to Mackie’s shop tonight, certain he could have Sean’s brother drooling over collector’s prospects. It left the room looking cleaner and a bit stark with just its furniture and a few remaining decorative things, though Ian seemed more than pleased. They’d tackle the upstairs rooms another day.

Tuning out Ian’s continued rambling from the kitchen, Dom turned on the bench to face the piano. It’s top had been recently devoid of candleholders and Christmas cards from many years past sitting amongst a coating of dust accumulated in the months since Bea had died.

Going through another’s things had a certain morose feeling to it. Though he’d never known Ian’s wife, he remembered the quiet hush and melancholy of seeing his parents do this at his gran’s house, watching all the things he’d longed to examine be packed away, never to be seen again. He’d been too young then to be allowed to help, too young to really comprehend the loss, but he remembered that odd, detached feeling to this day.

Glancing down, he flipped open the piano’s lid, running his fingers lightly over the keys without depressing them, a little nostalgic with his own memories of his mum teaching him to play. He’d never been very good.

Shutting his eyes, he tried the opening melody of _Für Elise_ , managing the first several notes before hitting the wrong key, the very same key he’d always got wrong.

“You play, then, my lad?”

Ian’s suddenly close voice startled him, and he turned away from the keys. “I… no. Not really.”

Ian handed him a light beer, and gazed fondly at the piano. “Bea would play that song, sometimes. Filled the whole house with it. She loved music, my Bea did. Taught both our children on that piano.”

Dom took a large tasteless gulp, remembering well the day Shiloh had played this same song for him, a song that she’d learned on her own in her foster home, where she had been happiest in all her short life. Somehow, some way, she’d stretched her tiny fingers to reach the note, _that_ note that had always eluded him, that had made his own father so upset when he missed it. Shiloh had done it right, and Dom had swelled with enormous pride.

“Bloody noise,” Ian grunted at a thumping from above again. “How are the two of you, then? Or is he channeling all his aggression on my roof these days?”

Dom grinned at his bottle. “No, he’s good. We’re good. He’s got that job now; I think that was part of it. He needed something to do. And we’re going to my parents’ in London for Christmas, so. He’s excited.”

Ian arched his furry brows, “Just him?”

Dom shrugged, “I’ve not really been back for a long time.”

“How long is that?” Ian prompted, “I reckon I’ve got you beat.”

Dom chuckled, “I moved out here for graduate school so… nine years?”

It was the first time he’d really thought about it, the length of time it had truly been since he’d seen his family. His mother had visited only once, but rang often. His father had hardly deigned to speak to him unless forced before he’d left, the day he’d graduated MMU with honours, and foiled that same evening’s celebration by coming out at the supper table. Contact with Matt had been sporadic at best since Dom had been in his teens. Nearly a decade, then. Perhaps he and Billy weren’t so different after all.

“My… er. My dad and I don’t get on.”

“Aye,” Ian nodded, “Now that I understand. Barnaby and I don’t do well in a room either. It was enough at the funeral, though there were more than a few words there as well,” Ian cut his eyes to Dom, then shrugged himself, “Old disagreements, you know. Ours more about money than lifestyle.”

Dom didn’t press that point. “Where do they live now?”

“Let me think, now,” Ian put his bottle down on the newly discovered coaster on the side table, and clasped his gnarled hands together. “Barny’s family is in California, but he travels a lot for that job. Lissa and her husband are… no, that’s not right. Barny is in Washington, Lissa’s in California, and the twins are hers. I can never remember.” He shook his head again, “My Bea always knew. She’d… write off those Christmas and birthday cards and have all those dinner parties here with her bridge friends, she’d have had me up there ages ago fixing the bloody roof.” His whole face seemed to droop in sadness, “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m shite at all this business without her.”

Dom tsked, waving away the old man’s excuses, “Bugger that, mate. I’m obviously crap at keeping up with family too, you know, and Billy has all but–”

He shut up fast, seeing Billy suddenly appear at the kitchen door with his lips pressed tight together. He hadn't even realized the hammering from above had stopped.

Billy moved past, dusted his jeans and sat in an armchair, picking at his nails without looking up, “The, erm… the roof’s done. Well enough to last the winter, at least.”

An old wall clock somewhere in the house chimed the hour softly away. Dom fidgeted. “Sorry,” he whispered frightfully in the silence.

A sudden chuckle drew both their eyes. “You two,” Ian said amusedly, “You remind me of me with Bea, back in the beginning.”

Dom didn’t understand, and Billy looked somewhat off-put beneath a steady mask.

“So afraid of boundaries,” Ian explained, “I remember those days. Bea was a well brought up girl, you know, and me a lowly working class sod. Do you know, I was so afraid I would offend her ‘delicate sensibilities’ one day," He laughed harder. "Let slip a swear word or a fart, and away she’d go back to England.”

Dom couldn’t help but smile, though he’d crossed a rather bigger line than that. Bringing up Maggie in new company was not a good topic of discussion.

But Ian looked at Billy, his eyes sparkling over his clasped hands, “I’ll not hound you, son. No, I daresay I know an old bruise when I see one. We all have them, don’t we? But if you examine them once a day, don't press them but leave them lie, they heal through. Takes a fair sight longer for some than for others, in Barny’s case." His old voice softened, "Of course, it does help to have someone tell you so, in case the hurt goes so deep, you can’t see it for yourself.”

Billy passed a finger over the pink scar on his knuckle and eventually smiled up at Ian. “You’re right, I suppose,” he ventured, “It does help.”

“Well then? Which of these are we taking where, lad?” Ian gestured to the boxes, and three of them (mostly Dom and Billy) shuffled several of them to the outdoor shed, and the rest to an upper bedroom to be sold off later. The day was getting on and Ian had missed his afternoon nap, so they headed off to leave him to it, Dom with one box of records under his arm.

“Bills, I didn’t mean to–“ Dom tried as they walked, bypassing the flat and on to the Metro station.

“It’s all right, Dommeh,” Billy cut him off with a smile that said it really was.

Once on the train that would take them to Manhattan, he plucked a record sleeve from the box and read the back. “Remember these? You’re too young, maybe.”

“Oi! Am not, Mr. Technology,” Dom gave him mocking smirk, “We had records ‘til I was at least eight or so.”

Billy gave a silly snort, “Eight!” He leafed through the box, stopping occasionally on a few notables. “Maggie used to do chores for pence to buy the Beatles. I snapped her _A Hard Day’s Night_ in half by accident one day, and she cried for ages.”

“Sacrilege,” Dom cringed. “Destruction of relics is a cardinal sin.”

“I was knee-high! I didn’t know.”

After a deli dinner, as cheap as could be expected for the neighborhood, they headed to Mackie’s Music. Mac shuffled through the records in his shop with the enthusiasm of a kid in a candy shop, as Dom had predicted. Some he pulled out and railed about the cost he’d get in the shop versus eBay. Dom got him to promise ten percent of the sales (which he intended to give back to Ian), and they were out into the chilly but mild evening by the time the sun began to sink and flash between the skyscrapers.

“He’s like Elijah with music,” Billy grinned.

“Yeah,” Dom agreed, “I always figured if Elijah came back here, Mackie’d give him a job at the shop easy, maybe even rent him the spare room he has.”

Billy said nothing about this idea, but steered Dom straight down the sidewalk when he’d veered for the subway back home. He just smiled when questioned on it, and hooked his arm in Dom’s. “Walk with me. It’s early.”

They walked down through Lower Manhattan, past the closed shop where Billy worked, down side streets and bike paths until Billy had them out on a scenic overlook of the river. “Have a look at that, Dommeh.”

“Jesus,’ Dom breathed at the sight. From here he could see the piers, with rows upon rows of cruise liners at their terminals, big and small with their lights at full tilt. They glittered nearly as bright as the sunset piercing between the buildings across the water.

“I saw the Karma down there, a week ago. That’s the one Liv used to work on before the Kismet,” Billy said quietly, leaning on the handrail of the overlook. “It’ll be in the Florida Keys by now.”

Dom turned from the brightness to Billy, his profile stunningly beautiful in the golden sunset, the chilly breeze fluttering the thin fringe of hair on his forehead and tingeing his cheeks and nose with pink. Beautiful, and sad.

“You miss it.”

Billy was still for a while before he nodded. He didn’t look up to confirm this truth, but he did look guilty to admit it. His fingers shifted restlessly on the railing. “I miss it the way it was, when it was me and Bean and Elijah and Viggo and the rest. Before Orlando came on. Everything was so easy, and I had nothing at all to worry about, Dommeh. _Nothing_.”

Dom blinked back out at the ships. “So… so it was Ace that ruined everything, then.”

“No,” Billy chuffed humorlessly, “As much as I’d like to put it all on him, no. Orlando was a pain in the arse, but he wasn’t more than that. I wouldn’t give him any more credit, it would make him feel important.”

Dom thumbed the wrought iron handrail himself, remembering the early days of his holiday, when he didn’t trust Billy any farther than he could throw him, and Orlando’s vengeful attempts to make the break up worse than it was at the end. He remembered what he’d said to the man in the Lounge toilet, and the look on his face at his words. “He had his own problems, Bill. People aren’t just like that.” Dom stopped, irritated at his own inability to explain, “I… if he’d come to me before you did, I would’ve…”

He glanced back, fearing wrath at this confession, but there was none. Billy didn’t even look surprised. “He had that effect on a lot of people.”

Their eyes met, silent acceptance on both parts until Billy’s slipped down and he reached out to tug lightly on Dom’s greenstone necklace. A light smile came to his lips, a thought behind his eyes, but he didn’t share it. His face was half in the sunset and half out, secretive, before he turned back to the ships, growing ever brighter as the sun failed.

Dom sighed. He knew there would be things he’d never know. Instead, he spoke an observation that he hadn’t consciously felt until presented with a visual reminder. “You don’t sing anymore, Bills. Not really.”

Billy nodded, and smiled back at him, “I found who I was singing to.”

Silly and romantic though it was, Dom knew Billy well enough now to see through this ruse. “But why? As a job, I mean, why don’t you–“

“Because I don’t want to, all right?” There was a thread of anger back in Billy’s words, in the set of his brows, and Dom flinched away, hearing Billy sigh and then cover his hand on the rail, winding their fingers in apology.

“It’s just…” Billy shook his head and started over, “You know, I never wanted to do it in the first place. It was Bean, after he fucked up his back and we quit doing construction. He got into the bartending, and got me drunk enough once to do bloody karaoke.

“But you know what convinced me to do it? It wasn’t that I was good at it, or that I thought I could be the next Barry Manilow. It was just the money, Dom. That’s all. I was floored that they’d pay me a hundred quid a night to get up in a pub and sing for an hour. Before that, I had to do haul round cinder blocks or tar roofs… or get my arse beat up for that kind of money. And the cruiseline? That came off a bloody flyer Bean found. One audition and suddenly we had all that,” he tossed a gesture at the ships, “And I had the perfect way to run away from _everything_. Everything and everybody. Me and everyone else.”

Dom listened through this entire speech, near tirade as it was, until Billy exhaled and gazed back at the ships. Having nothing to say, he did the same, digesting this new information as the sun slipped all the way beneath the horizon, and the skyline reflected itself in the Hudson.

He nudged Billy’s hand, smiling softly, “You don’t play either.”

Billy nodded again, and then turned up the palm of his left hand, pressing gingerly at the middle fingertip. “It tingles. The doctor said it might for a while. She said nerve damage takes a long time to heal.”

“Oh, Bills,” Dom murmured and folding the hand into his. That loss felt more like a blow than Billy’s anger had.

“It’s not bad, Dom,” Billy reassured him, “I can still play, just not a lot. It’ll get better.”

“Is that why you haven’t started on Holly?”

“Aye, it’s part of it,” Billy confirmed, and the smile was back in his voice, “You found her for me. I won’t bugger that up.”

Dom nodded, but kept his eyes down to the hand, with its pink scar and what it represented, like all of Billy’s scars, inside and out, until Billy’s other hand tilted his chin back up.

“I wanted you to see them go, Dommeh,” Billy spoke quietly, and with a soft smile, “I don’t want to run anymore.”

They watched from the overlook as one ship carefully cleared the pier and headed down the river to the ocean. Another slowly followed in its wake, taking with them all the glamour that had been, the materialized perfection Dom had never managed to embrace on his trip, and the words Billy had spoken while they left and he stayed behind.

And taking Dom’s hand, Billy pulled him away, back the way they came. “Let’s go home.”

That word echoed in Dom’s head in the reflection of the subway car windows as the tunnel lights flashed by, with Billy’s warmth pressed to his side while they walked in and out of streetlamps, and up the stairs to the flat, and all the melancholy of the day slid away into the darkness. A word Billy had never used until now. _Home_.

Dom tossed his own coat over Billy’s on the sofa and caught his hand before he moved too far away into the dim flat. He turned back, inquisitive, and Dom crowded him until his backside bumped up against the back of the sofa. Grinning, he cupped Billy’s face, tilting it for a kiss. Billy opened his lips on a soft exhale and Dom dipped in to taste and mingle with Billy’s tongue, swallowing a tiny noise and letting his hands drift down Billy’s neck to deftly begin pulling apart the buttons of his shirt.

He reached the hem without parting their mouths and stroked both semi-cool palms up Billy’s sides. Gasping, Billy’s head dropped back and Dom slowly kissed his way down Billy’s throat, reveling in taste and warmth pressed against his body.

“God, Dommeh,” Billy breathed, fueling Dom’s intentions, and he traced a path with his tongue straight down the center of Billy’s chest and stomach as he sank gracefully to his knees.

Pulling Billy’s trainers off, Dom had his jeans and pants puddled around his ankles in seconds, but held back any physical onslaught to admire Billy with his hands. He traced the firmness of calves under fuzzy pale skin, smooth and soft at the back of his knees, thighs with hair that thinned on the insides and grew in a pattern along the front and sides, radiating out from the dark thatch surrounding his penis. Dom breathed warmly over it without touching, watching it twitch and swell as he smoothed his hands up to the roundness of Billy’s arse in the back and the soft dips of his hipbones in front, beneath a very slight tummy. He flicked his gaze upward and found Billy looking back with heat and adoration in his eyes, his hands reaching down to stroke Dom’s face and comb his fingers through his hair.

Dom could think of very little to say that hadn’t been said tonight, except what he wanted to show without words. Bracing Billy’s hand against his cheek, he turned to press a kiss to the center of the palm and then another in the well of Billy’s hipbone. Nosing through the curls, he dragged his parted lips along Billy’s length, just touching and breathing, reaching to cup his balls and coax him gently to full hardness.

Billy’s breathing grew deeper at Dom’s teasing, his chest rising visibly with each time Dom moved his hand on Billy’s shaft, pulling in a slow rhythm, watching Billy’s face. Sometimes his eyes drifted closed, his teeth clenched and fell back open with a breath, and once, as Dom swiveled his hand over the head as it peeked out from the foreskin, Billy’s pecs jumped and the muscles of his stomach fused with the sudden tension. Dom waited until Billy’s eyes came back to his, then he took Billy into his mouth and down, the corners of his mouth tightening at the long groan that issued from above.

Pulling back, he let Billy’s cockhead press into the pocket of his cheek as his tongue fluttered along the length, sucking on the upstroke and letting his hands circle round to Billy’s arse, feeling the muscles go taut and relax in the tempo he’d set with his mouth.

He thought of what they had said, in view of those sparkling ships, of the memories in the past and the sadness of the end of that Billy, the loss of the lounge singer that was such a huge part of what Dom had fallen for. But he heard the richness of Billy’s voice, the ringing clarity of the word ‘home’, a song unto itself. It came with a sound of hope that Billy could be happy here, that he could be home with Dom. Here with Billy’s heated skin beneath his hands, the sounds of his breath and the taste of him strong on his tongue, Dom _had_ him, possessed and worshipped and adored him, and began to think, just maybe, it could last.

Dom’s fingertips slid along the cleft of Billy’s arse and he whimpered, dipping at his knees in encouragement, and Dom swallowed him deep as he wriggled a finger in. Billy hacked out a sound, his own fingers weaving into Dom’s short hair as he pushed back on the digit and forward into the heat of Dom’s mouth. Dom hummed, pressing the finger deeper, though he knew it would be uncomfortable dry. He turned his thumb inward between thighs and up to stroke along Billy’s perineum, sucking hard and wetly to compensate, but Billy hardly seemed to mind, having braced the small of his back against the sofa back so his hips could move freely back and forth. Before long Dom’s finger was most of the way in and he let Billy fuck his mouth, happy to give him whatever pleasure he wanted tonight.

Grunts were broken by gasps as Billy hunched slightly forward, and his voice turned high and desperately strained, “I’m gonna come Dommeh, oh I can’t wait,” and he flooded Dom’s mouth in bursts, nearly sobbing with relief.

Dom swallowed and suckled him gently through and pulled his finger away, running his hands down Billy’s trembling legs and up as he got to his feet to reach Billy’s mouth, lax and pliant, though perking up just enough to taste himself on Dom’s tongue.

“You are fucking amazing, Bills,” Dom purred against the sweat-sheened skin at Billy’s temple, working to shuck his own shoes and jeans without letting go, “It’s insane how much I need you.”

“Oh my god, just spread me out on a flat surface somewhere and you can have me,” Billy laughed breathlessly, “I can’t bloody stand up any longer.”

Grinning wildly, Dom guided Billy backwards into the bedroom and did just that, making love to Billy slowly despite his own words, pausing often to trace the features below him with lips and fingertips. He felt every second tick in the present until he fell into his own intense and prickling climax.

Dozing comfortably on the warm body beneath him, the sound of a muffled phone cut through his tingling and drowsy afterglow.

“Phone’s ringing,” Billy murmured, hands petting up and down Dom’s back.

“Mmm,” He lifted his head and caressed Billy’s face, “Let it ring.”

Billy leaned up, begging a kiss, which Dom obliged lazily, drowning and not in the least keen on coming up for air. Billy’s mouth went lax in sleep, and Dom only stayed awake long enough to toss the condom somewhere near the bin and make the goofy observation that neither of them managed to get rid of their shirts and socks, or even clean up and get under the covers. Wriggling more comfortably into the shape of Billy, his breathing matched the sleeping rhythm beneath him.

It was only when the shrill ring sounded again that Dom groaned and woke, glancing hazily at the late hour on the clock. Pulling away, he padded out to find it, digging through his jeans left on the floor behind the sofa with Billy’s. He freed the phone from a pocket and found Sean’s number glowing softly on the display.

“Yeah.”

“Dom,” Sean’s voice sounded tired and his pause was over-long, “Shit… I don’t want to…”

“What is it?”

“Ryan.”

“Shit,” Dom grabbed the jeans and started hauling them back on with the mobile cricked between his ear and shoulder, “I’ll be right there.”

“Dommie,” a sigh fell over the line, “Don’t hurry.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fresh wounds and old bruises.

_Thursday, November 9th_

Dom stood back near the wrought iron fence surrounding the cemetery, leaning against a massive old oak and drawing his overcoat closed around his plain, everyday clothes.

He’d thought he’d talked himself out of coming here. Talked himself out of the suit, out of going out, out of etching the date and time in his head. He was not required to be here. In all truth, he probably shouldn’t be. But it was an obligation he felt, nonetheless.

Beside him, Billy’s hand slipped amongst the folds of their coats to take his, a knot of warmth in the cold world.

Billy, who had come to the hospital to take him home after he’d refused to leave. After he’d made a scene yelling at Sean, at Maria, at the doctors for not bothering to tell him Ryan’s simple cold had progressed to full blown pneumonia until he was so far gone, there was little chance that he’d pull through. Until he was not even allowed put a teddy bear in the incubator where Ryan lay covered in tubes, for fear of dust. All he could do was watch him draw horrible, rattling breaths, until even that wasn’t allowed, and then all he could do was wait.

       
_  
He stumbled back down the hospital’s cold corridor to the over-bright, thoughtlessly cheerful waiting room, away from the chirping of machines and glass doors he didn’t have authorization to cross, and into a waiting pair of arms that caught him._

 _“Dommeh.”_

 _Dom blinked blearily at the faces of nurses at the desk, of other families with other fears and doubts, at Billy’s sweet, worried face before his. “Billy.”_

 _“It’s all right Dom, you’re all right.”_

 _“You hate hospitals.”_

 _Billy smiled tightly, “Aye, I do at that. I came to get you. Bring you home.”_

 _“No. How? M’staying.” Dom’s thoughts strung together in his numb mind. He was losing another child, another life in his hands. His eyes welled up and he bit the inside his cheek hard. He was keeping his distance. He cared, he didn’t love._

 _“Sean called me,” Billy said softly, “Dommeh, you can’t stay here. It’s not on you; you’ve done your bit. Come home now. Come home to me.”_

It was Billy who sat on the sofa and held him after that final phone call, stroking Dom’s hair and keeping him close, who had wiped his face and tucked him into bed and read to him from a favourite old book.

It was Billy who stood here beside him now in the shadow of an ancient tree, doing what he had done the first time this happened, keeping Dom moving through the day and the week and the month.

Dom couldn’t hear the words the priest was saying from this distance, but the tone and cadence of them he knew by heart from years long past. He didn’t want to hear them, but his mind recited them anyway.

 _…Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff – they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over…_

The words were beautiful, poetic, somehow a comfort, though he no longer believed in their source. There had been a time years ago, when he had been stunned that the god he had been raised to believe loved him unconditionally had conditions after all. There was anger as well, at priests who put fear into him of a shunned life, a punished fate if he didn’t change his terrible thoughts. And there was resentment, for the one man whose opinion and acceptance mattered most of all, whose beliefs were along the same lines. Now that bitterness had settled away in corners, the fear had dissipated, and he found he simply no longer had time for any of that.

Justin stood between the Cunningham’s, looking stiff and uncomfortable in his miniature suit, tie and long coat of an adult, foreign on an eight-year-old boy accustomed to t-shirts and jeans. His face was solemn and tearless, staring down at the small coffin as Maria wept quietly, or glancing up when his own foster mother sniffled into a handkerchief. He reached up and took her hand in his own, stoic far beyond his short years.

The service was lopsided. The coffin was plain and simple, the flowers nearly overwhelming it. The Chavez’s had buried several children, including two of their own, and were happy to put most of their own money toward the living, rather than lavishing the lost more than the state funding covered. The Cunningham’s, perhaps out of guilt, made up for it in droves of flowers and even a small marble headstone, an unusual bestowal on a ward of the state.

The eulogy ended. The priest closed his book and moved respectfully away, while the two families remained, offering condolences and hugging each other. Justin took from his pocket a small toy truck and set it among the array of flowers that nearly covered the infant-sized coffin, then turned and silently followed his new family away. Dom recognized the truck as one of the few toys they'd possessed, one that Justin had asked to take when Dom had picked him up out of the squalor of the flat where they'd been found. Not for himself, but for his baby brother. _Can I give it to him when he gets better?_ he'd asked, as Sean took Ryan to the hospital. Dom had answered, _Of course you can. But you keep it safe for him until then, yeah?_ Yet another broken promise.

Justin had, from day one, been so much like Shiloh, and Dom suddenly thought, like Billy, an old soul who had seen too much, trapped in the body of a child who should have grown up innocent of such things as death and poverty. Now, in his small polished shoes and pristine clothes, the boy had a life of privilege to live: a family quite eager to go through the motions of legal adoption and more than likely to win it.

So he had saved one. He had helped many over nearly seven years. But he’d now lost three over the course of the same year, and that simply was not good enough. Whether they’d got years of his time, or months, or even a scant few hours, he'd failed them all.

The burial crew moved in, uncaring and paid to put the dead under the ground among rows and rows of faceless others. Dom turned away, letting go Billy’s hand and walking down along the familiar path by the fence. He turned at a gnarled and over-trimmed yew and stopped before a grave marked only with a plastic card set in a crude metal frame. Over the last year he’d come here looking for strength, drawing it from a little girl who had had it in droves in life. Until now, he’d always come alone.

Dom watched as Billy knelt, clearing leaves from around the placard and using his own scarf to wipe away dirt, caked on by the snow and wind, from the plastic bearing the name and date – _Shiloh Annetta Casiano : b. May 18, 1999 d. January 31, 2006_.

“When Mum and Dad died, Gran hemmed my Dad’s suit to fit me for their funeral,” Billy spoke, his soft voice almost loud among the quiet sleep here. “His only suit, the suit he’d been married in. I didn’t want to wear it. I didn’t want to go. Their graves are just like this, in Glasgow. No headstones, just cards, like that. Couldn’t afford that. But Gran bought them new clothes to be buried in, like the clothes mattered.”

Dom looked down on Shiloh’s resting place. Much of his grief for her was contained now, packaged in a small box inside of a bigger memory where Billy came and sang to him every night, silly songs Dom read too much into, and not enough when he’d said goodbye. Billy had warmed him through that grief, and had come to him when he called, forgiven such a mistake. When he thought of her now, he felt a sense of such peace, and Billy’s hand on his back was that strength.

“There was a man, come to the flat after they died,” Billy continued, “He’d been at the hospital too, but he’d come to our house after saying he was here to make sure we – Maggie and me – were being cared for properly.”

Dom listened carefully: a man like him, a social worker, who had Billy’s life in his hands.

“I wouldn’t talk to him. He said a lot of shite about knowing how I felt, wanting to help. I shouted at him, run him out of my room. I heard him talking to Gran about money and… sending us away to live with someone else, and then I run him out of the house.”

Dom couldn’t help but smile a little. Fierce, fiery Billy, sharp and unrelenting in anger, that someone _dared_ even consider further breaking his already broken family. And yet… _and yet_ , desperately in need of the counsel he fought against… someone who cared.

“He always came back, always went on all sympathetic. He even encouraged that job at the racetrack, and… after, he came to the detention too, talking, always talking about ways I could be better. Oh, I _hated_ him, Dominic.” Billy exhaled a deep breath that hung in the air, “I hated him for being right.

“When you first told me about her, I wondered why you cared so much. She wasn’t your own, any more than those boys. It’s so much weight on you, Dommeh. What you do.”

Dom said nothing, neither acknowledged nor denied this truth. Someone had to do this job. Someone had to hold up the weight. If they didn’t, innocent lives were broken and lost. If only they all had Billy’s strength to fight their way out of it alone.

But clearly, even if he tried to hold them out of the way of harm, they were lost anyway.

He turned back, taking the path out of the gates with Billy following, across the street and down the block to a park. It felt as sullen as the graveyard with its naked trees and dry, cold grass, but there was life here. A man threw a frisbee for a small but enthusiastic terrier. A couple picnicked beneath a tree despite the chill. The hot dog vendor near to the shops on one side of the park. There was even a young man with a guitar, singing about a girl with red hair who broke his heart. Billy stopped them to listen for several minutes before pulling out some bills to put in the lad’s case. “He’s not bad. A bit pitchy in spots, but good hands, fingers. It’s not easy in this cold.”

They found a bench to sit and watch the world go by. In the back of Dom’s mind, there were plenty of things that he could be doing. He should be at work, though he’d been expressly told by Cate that he wasn’t needed and wouldn’t be useful anyway. Were it not for Billy, he’d be on his couch with a whiskey bottle, staring at the blank TV.

“Can I ask you something, Dom? You can say no.” That sort of phrasing gave the sort of question it was away, a big one, one of _those_ questions.

Billy studied him until Dom met his eyes dully. “Why do you do this? No, not why, I know why, but… What made you take this job? Where does it come from?”

Dom thought carefully. It wasn’t exactly a question he had an answer to, but then Billy had a knack for that. The events that led to it were all intertwined, though. Billy had secrets, deep horrible secrets he’d spoken to _no one_ but Dom, trusted Dom enough to take and keep and forgive them, and yet here he was still covering his over, keeping them well and truly buried. Of all people in the world, Billy had a right to ask.

“When I was little, we’d go camping in the Lake District,” he started. “Dad would teach me the names of all the bugs and birds and plants and stars, or we’d go to the beach and find fossil shells. He’d buy model kits and we’d build them, and he’d teach me about every part on a ship and what it did, how it worked. Even at church, we’d walk up and down the cathedral, and he would tell me what kind of stone was in the walls, where it came from, how old it was. If I had trouble with my studies, he’d go over it again and again until I got it perfect. I thought he was the smartest man in the world. I thought that if I learned enough, I could be like him.

“But at the same time, Matt was always getting into trouble or behind on his schoolwork, and he never had the attention span for Dad’s lectures. They’d argue and shout and Matt would leave, and then Dad would argue with Mum about him.” Dom picked irritably at his fingernails, “‘Why is he such a rebel? Why doesn’t he try? Why isn’t he like Dom?’ I didn’t understand. I had to be better for them, for Matt. But I didn’t know why they thought he was such a bad kid. He was smart and he didn’t need school to prove it. He was the cool one, and he stood up for me, you know? Maybe he did things he shouldn’t have, but nothing really awful.”

The frisbee flew wide and landed at their feet with the terrier after it, trying wildly to lift it from where it fell, but could not wedge its jaws beneath the tricky edge and the frosty ground. Billy knelt to help, throwing it back in the direction of its owner, and the dog shot off after it.

“There were other things,” Dom continued. “He signed us up for footie one year. Matt stopped going after two practices, but I tried so hard, I had it in my head that I could be the next Brian McClair. But one practice, a big defender nearly ran me over, really threw out my knee. I had a brace for three months. I wanted to go back, and Dad wanted it too. ‘You get right back on the horse, that’s how you get to be the best,’ Dad said, but Mum put her foot down, and I didn’t play football again.

“Mum tried to teach me piano, but I always made the same mistakes, holding my fingers wrong, hitting the wrong chords. Dad would get aggravated listening to me practice it and mess up over and over. He’d make Mum show me what was right, but I couldn’t get it. I couldn’t get it right.”

“Instead I took to painting. I’d slop the paint all over, and he would come and talk about color theory and perspective and balance and shite I didn’t care about, I was just having fun making a mess.

“‘You have to be the best, Dominic. You have to get perfect marks, Dominic. Show your brother how it’s done, Dominic.’ My dad,” Dom bit off his words. Years of striving to please, years of coming so close but not close enough, not good enough, not perfect enough had taken its toll on him. He was never those things, and Matt remained immune, the carefree dreamer, the popular, consummate wreck, the gypsy seemed so much more at ease with the imperfection of this life. Dom only wished he could be so reckless.

“And then there was Cullin,” Dom sighed, scrubbing at the back of his hair. “My mate from school. My best mate.” He darted a sideways glance at Billy, “Well, he was more than just a mate, really.”

Dom could picture Cullin in his mind, quiet but crass, opinionated, intense. “He killed himself when he was eighteen. Swallowed a bunch of pills."

He took a deep breath, shaking his head, no, that wasn’t the right place to start. “His parents were never home. They were always off on holiday, separate holidays, or business trips, he said. I never knew what they did. I don’t know if he even knew. But his mum was a drunk, and his father was always on the phone. He would stay at our house at least once a week. Mum would let him, and sometimes, a few times, Dad let him come camping with us. We had the same classes, all through school.”

“Dad didn’t approve of him. I didn’t understand it at all, but then I liked Cullin. He’d grown up learning things on his own, forming his own opinions. In school, he’d debate with teachers, and he’d argue his point so well that they’d get red in the face.” Dom managed a grin at that, but sobered quickly.

“We spent so much time together. Always at my house, never at his. He never wanted to be home, especially if his mum was there. Sometimes he'd come over and climb in my window at night, and he’d leave the same way in the morning. He'd walk to school while Dad drove Matt and me, and we’d pretend we hadn’t just seen each other when we woke up. We never got caught.”

“He was my first,” Dom met Billy’s eyes quickly, “I was his. And it was stupid, and fumbling, and… quick.

“But we thought it would last forever. We’d get out all my books about New Zealand and Madagascar and the Galapagos and we’d plan how we’d… run away together to them, how we’d get away from our parents to places were we could be alone and no one would care that we weren’t the same as everyone else.” He laughed quietly, bitterly, “We were so stupid, Billy. We figured if those places could evolve differently, then it would be okay if we did too.”

He paused and sighed deeply, “But then we moved across the city, when I was fourteen. Dad transferred to another school, and I hardly ever saw Cullin after that. We tried, but over a year we just… lost touch.”

Even years afterward, when he’d been out in the world and seen his place in it, the naïve idea that New Zealand was where he would find the answers had never left him. He’d planned that trip, worked and saved for it, long after its idyllic purpose had drifted away into reality. He might have gone sooner, had his plans not changed and he’d come to New York instead, but then his and Billy’s paths might never have crossed.

And there was that fateful notion again, the one that Billy took no stock in. He sat bundled in his scarf and coat, turned slightly on the bench with his elbow resting on the back, a rosy cheek propped in his hand. His hair had grown since it was last cut, longer now than it had ever been on the boat because Dom liked it that way, liked the way it curled round his ears and collar and tickled his nose when he kissed there. It was with Billy that he felt freedom to just be, more than with anyone else, a feeling that had transferred itself from New Zealand, as if Billy carried it with him. One that would be tested in nearly a month’s time during the holidays.

“I was a semester into Uni when I found out about it. Cullin had… he’d…” Dom stopped, feeling the dull ache of it, a long gone loss. “They were his mother’s pills. And they weren’t home and no one found him until someone came to clean."

“Dommeh, shh, it’s all right,” Billy was there, close, his voice a comfort.

"I'm all right, Bill," he contested softly, and felt guilty. Shouldn't he feel more? Why didn't it hurt anymore, as it had then?

Billy let him sit and simply breathe the chill wind, held his hand, his thumb occasionally circling round a knuckle. The man and his dog rested on the ground, the dog panting ferociously, and the couple packed up their basket and left.

“I changed my course work after that,” Dom knitted his brows and looked to Billy for validation. "I don't really know why. I couldn't help him, but I wanted an answer. Why he’d done it, why he’d gone so far inward that he thought he couldn’t get back. Why didn’t anyone help him? I wasn’t there, and we weren’t even friends anymore, but… someone should have helped him. Someone should have got him help years before it came to that.

“And my dad… he was a good dad, you know? I wasn't neglected or abused or anything, it wasn’t about that. He only wanted better for me than he had. I had a good childhood, I had everything I ever needed. And I was a good kid, I just… wasn't good enough. I'm never good enough."

Billy sighed, pulling him up, an arm wrapped around his waist to guide him back toward home.

They walked a while before Billy spoke again. “Remember the night we met? The whales were singing. And the stars all above us, millions of them, and the ocean, all around. Felt like you and me against all the world. Remember?”

“I remember.”

“This city, all these buildings, all these trees. So many people.” Billy paused and turned to face him on the sidewalk, “We are so small, Dominic. And so selfish, all of us only trying to help ourselves. But not you. You have the biggest heart of any man I ever knew.”

Dom blinked and looked down at the cold concrete. He was selfish himself, wondering if he could really keep doing this, keeping on caring, but not loving, being detached even though it didn’t make it hurt any less. “I don’t.”

“You gave Shiloh a chance. You gave those boys a chance. Nothing is ever perfect. You fix it enough to make it run until the wheels fall off. My dad used to say that. And if your old man could see–”

“But I didn’t. He was only a baby. I couldn’t fix him.”

“That he died is part of life, Dommeh. People die. But he died having lived for months surrounded by people who cared, knowing what it is to be loved. It’s not perfect, but if that is as good as it gets, then that is good enough.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things to be thankful for.

_Thursday, November 23rd_

“Allie, your turn.”

“Um…” Allie danced in her seat before her barely touched turkey, “I’m thankful for Mommy and Daddy and horses and Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Mack and Uncle Dommie and Billy and… um, Mrs. Morganstern.”

She earned a chuckle from around the table, the last being her teacher, who was young and pretty and supposedly not nearly as mean as old Mrs. DeLouise had been the previous year.

“Hmm. For family and new friends and youth,” Ian said, smiling particularly at Allie and Lizzie. “Keeps an old man’s heart ticking.”

“I forgot Mr. Ian too,” Allie spouted, pink-cheeked.

Mackie’s turn was less eloquent, given that he was working on third helpings, “Football. Christine’s candied yams. And that Judy Garland album that raked in almost five hundred dollars on eBay.”

“Oh good, you must have something for Ian, then?” Dom asked.

“What are you thankful for, Dom?” Mackie retorted through a mouthful, nodding to Ian.

It was tradition in Sean’s house to say one’s thanks over the remains of Thanksgiving dinner, along with listening to “Alice’s Restaurant” and watching college football. Being the token Brit at the last six dinners, Dom usually kept up a running jab with an accent pulled out of the darkest Stockport back alley and as many colloquialisms as possible, but he’d broke that tradition the previous Thanksgiving with a migraine and a bad attitude.

“I’m thankful for still being invited,” he grinned.

“Should be, after last year,” Mackie crowed.

“What was last year?” Billy asked.

“Something about Imitrix and whiskey, or the combination of the two,” Mackie told him.

Dom let them laugh. “No, I am. I’m thankful for all the people who put up with me, rain or shine.”

“Especially rain,” Sean said.

“Billy’s turn,” Chris moved them forward. “What are you thankful for?”

“Dom.”

Dom gave him an eyebrow, and Billy shrugged, “Well you had to go and play the ‘everyone’ card, and all the rest I have to be thankful about is down to you anyway. So, yeah, just Dom.”

“Well, that’s just freakin’ precious,” drawled Mackie, “Can there be football now?”

The extravagant Thanksgiving dinner broke up, with Mackie rushing to get the game on the TV, Ian laying claim to the easy chair and loosening his belt. While Christine went to get Lizzie into clean clothes, Billy insisted on helping Sean clear up; another valiant attempt at diplomacy Dom wasn’t going to come between. There wasn’t room in the condo’s kitchen for more bodies anyway.

Truthfully, Sean was still tiptoeing around Dom for not including him in crucial work information, and Dom was just fine with letting him. He _and_ Billy had been expressly asked to a holiday dinner he already had a standing invitation for, and even been allowed bring Ian as a guest, making it clear that Sean knew he’d been wrong.

He escaped out onto Sean’s terrace with the end of a bottle of wine, feeling overfed and sleepy. It looked out over a courtyard and beyond that, a small park. Cars lined the streets, all likely visitors having Thanksgiving in the other condos surrounding the park.

The last week and a half had been monotonous, having been given his desk and the task of filing report after report, signing off on other people’s reports, doing foster check-ins by phone rather than in person, and answering the same questions from different levels of the office hierarchy over and over again.

Ryan’s death came with none of the ceremony and anger-fueled office comradery Shiloh’s had. No, instead, there had been inquiries, scraping both Dom’s and Sean’s service records with a fine-toothed comb. The Chavez’s were also scrutinized, despite having been one of their best fosters, and the only one willing to take on the kids who could very well die through no fault of their own. But the higher-ups needed a place to point fingers and lay blame, and so that was where it fell.

Cate assured them that it was simply the politics and paperwork of the matter, but the entire office was ruffled by the final blow of having Justin’s case officially transferred to Matilda and Audrey’s team, “as a precautionary measure”. Of course, they were both sympathetic and would keep Dom and Sean informed, but the damage had been done. He couldn’t help wondering what else he hadn’t been told over the years, over hundreds of cases. His morale was already shoe level, and his faith in the establishment floundering in the mud. Every evening he went home feeling useless and grouchy.

“All right?” Billy’s voice appearing at his side and his fingers winding with his own were centering, putting all the swirling bits of his mind away for the time being.

“Mmm.”

“You can’t go round looking so morose, it’s a holiday,” Billy quipped, “And they tell me there’s pie and ice cream next.”

“You like Thanksgiving, then? Are you officially going Yank on me?”

“Any holiday where we get out of work to glut ourselves into a stupor is one I can get behind.”

Dom almost smiled, pulling him closer by the waist and touching their foreheads. “You didn’t mean what you said though. Being thankful for me when I’ve been a maudlin bastard.”

“You’re my maudlin bastard,” Billy answered simply. “Besides, you cheated. Stealing Allie’s answer, for shame.”

“I could have just said ‘Billy’. It’s what I meant, anyway.”

“Right. So I’ll be the selfish one, then,” Billy smiled, holding tighter when he obviously felt Dom gearing up to apologize, “No, don’t go getting all fussed. I like having you all to myself.”

A commotion brought them back to the house; Allie had spilled her sparkling grape juice down the front of her dress and onto the rug by the terrace door.

“I didn’t mean to!” she argued, “Daddy shouldn’t leave his stupid baseball thingies where people can trip!”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Sean groused, mopping at the carpet with a wet dishtowel and pushing the fallen bats out of the way, “You shouldn’t be trying to go between the couch and the wall anymore, you’re too big. Especially with a drink. Come on, let’s go change your clothes.”

“No. I can change by myself.”

“You can’t reach your dress hangers, Allie,” Sean chided her exasperatedly, stamping on the folded towel to sop up the stain while Chris brought over the stain remover.

“Fine. Uncle Dom can pick me a dress. Not you, since I’m too big for some things and not for others.”

She folded her arms over her stained pinafore and marched off to her room, leaving Dom pass the wine bottle to Billy, step around the mess and follow, holding back his grin from Sean’s eyes. He loved how much of a pistol Allie could be, especially to her dad when he needed it.

Dom picked out a fresh dress from the three Allie chose, this one with a brown and blue pattern, and put the soiled one on top of the hamper while she changed. Her room had been straightened up more than usual for company, with her model horses and coloring books placed neatly on the shelves. Only the Victorian-style dollhouse remained shifted around and open on its table; Allie must have been playing with it before guests arrived.

“Daddy’s so annoying sometimes,” she grumbled, trying to tie the bow in the back, and not managing. Dom wordlessly tied it for her. “If I could have a stool in here I could reach my clothes just fine. He treats me like a baby.”

“Yeah, he does,” Dom agreed, flaring out the bow prettily and turning her around, “But only because he doesn’t want you to get hurt, that’s all. One of those bats could have bonked you in the head and ruined everyone’s holiday.”

She snorted, sitting on the edge of her bed. “He was a lot more worried about the carpet than me. And it wasn’t even purple grape juice anyway, it practically matches the carpet.”

Dom couldn’t argue with that. Sean was so used to young kids, both at work and at home, what with Lizzie and another on the way, maybe he simply didn’t realize his eldest was quickly outgrowing his overzealous mollycoddling.

He sat in the reading chair by her bed and plucked a tissue from the box, using it to wipe juice from the toes of her buckle-front mary janes, and then pretending to shine them with it, like a shoe shiner in old movies.

“Uncle Dom?”

“Hmm?”

“Will you marry Billy?”

Dom stopped shining and gawked at her, his eyes skirting over her questioning face and then away while his heart stuttered back into rhythm, to the patterned quilt on the bed, to the books and toys in the corner, to the dollhouse. The open dollhouse, where he realized with a shock of complete clarity, two _boy_ dolls sat close together on the miniature sofa, while the girls had been put away.

“Did… Did your dad tell you about that?”

She nodded, but then shook her head guiltily, “I only guessed, but he told me about it when I asked.”

“Well, at least he thinks you’re big enough for that,” Dom shifted a bit in his seat. At her age, he himself hadn’t a clue how he was different, he only knew that he was. “How did you guess?”

She shrugged, picking at the lace sewn on her quilt, “Boys at school think holding hands is dumb, but sometimes you do it. And once I saw you kiss. On the lips. Not just you either, I’ve seen other grown-up boys do it too, on TV, or in the mall where Mommy takes me shopping sometimes. And just now on the terrace, you were hugging and whispering, like Daddy does to Mommy before…” Allie’s cheeks colored up, “… before they go in their bedroom and shut the door.”

Dom’s own ears burned, but a ridiculous smile stretched his face. They’d never really hidden anything in front of the Astin family, but he had to give her credit for catching on so fast. Even if she did get the birds and bees chat at the tender age of three, where Dom rather doubted anything about bees wanting to be with other bees ever came up. Then again, Sean was always obnoxiously thorough, so who knew.

Scrubbing his red face, he grinned at her, “You really are too observant for your own good, love.”

She merely looked back, curious and scrutinizing, as though she’d never really seen him before.

“You can ask me anything, you know.”

She looked back down at the lace. “Why didn’t _you_ tell me?”

Of all the questions she could have hit him with, that wasn’t one he expected. “I… I don’t know, sweetheart, it’s a grown-up thing and I didn’t–“

“Daddy tells me about grown-up things.”

Dom pulled his ear nervously, “I know he does. Sometimes it scares me that he does, because there’s so much that you don’t need to–“

She caught him with a look from under her brows that was so very reminiscent of her father that he laughed. Resting his elbows on his knees, he started over. “Did your dad tell you that some people don’t like it, when boys like other boys, or girls like other girls?”

“Yeah.”

“Your dad was the first person I told after… after I told _my_ dad. And my dad didn’t like it. He and I… we haven’t talked, or seen each other at all since. And that was a long time ago. Longer than I’ve known you.”

“Your own daddy doesn’t like you?”

“My dad doesn’t like that I like men instead of women,“ Dom sighed and looked at his hands, “He doesn’t think it’s right. But people just can’t help what they like, you know? Any more than you can… than you can help thinking horses are pretty.”

“Horses _are_ pretty,” she said hotly. “Daddy says it doesn’t matter what other people think is wrong or right, but he also says that people make laws to stop it, stop boys marrying other boys and stuff. And he’s always saying we have to follow the laws. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” he agreed, “Sometimes grown-ups are dumb, yeah? But people like your mum and dad vote for the laws, and so they change all the time.”

She nodded at her lap, and was quiet for a moment, “I don’t think Daddy likes Billy very much.”

“Hey,” Dom tilted her chin up to look at him, “Your dad is my best mate in all the world, Allie. If he didn’t like that I’m gay, he could have cost me my job, or any other job like it. He could have kept me from ever knowing you, my favourite girl. He and Billy just had some silly disagreement, and I don’t think it was about that. Besides,” he winked, “I think he’s just practicing for whenever you bring home someone special. Dads are supposed to be all scary and threatening to their little princess’ suitors.”

She rolled her eyes, but smiled shyly, “I like Billy, though. He’s funny, and he likes horses. And he sounds neat when he talks. Like you, but not the same.”

“I’m glad,” Dom couldn’t keep from grinning like a loon. “Is it okay with you if I keep him? You and I are married, after all.”

She eyed him wryly, “That was just for pretend.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She slid off the bed and went for the door, pausing when he didn’t immediately follow. “But will you get married? Someday, when it’s allowed?”

He stood up, looking over at the dollhouse, a miniature picture of what he already had. He wondered what his father would think about that. “I don’t know, love. Billy and I… we’re just starting this. I think it’s a bit new for all that.”

She looked so crestfallen, that he called her back into the room and crouched back down to her. “You’re lucky, you know. The way I grew up, I never really thought of it much. But Billy and I are together now just the same. Getting married is… a big thing, an important step, if you want it, but it’s what you feel inside that really counts. And no laws anywhere can take that away. Understand?”

“I guess,” she shrugged again, “I just wondered, because then Billy could be my Uncle too.”

Dom laughed, mostly at himself for overkill, and impulsively pulled her into a big hug. He loved how she could remain a child despite already knowing so much of the world, and he loved how she could brighten his mood. He held her back by the shoulders with a huge grin and said, “You know what? Call him Uncle Billy, if you want. He’ll get a kick out of it, and your dad will too.”

That got a big smile from her. She took his hand and pulled him back out to the living room, where Ian exclaimed how lovely she was in her new dress and Mackie yelled at the quarterback on the TV with Lizzie on his knee, imitating him.

“Where’s Billy?” Dom asked, looking around the front room. Chris paused in the kitchen to point at the terrace with the pie server.

Through the glass panes, Billy had that look of hard-set pride, daring to be struck down, and Dom took a step forward, meaning to break up whatever they were arguing about now. But Sean made no move, and Billy’s resolve fell away like a shell.

They shook hands. Then to Dom’s amazement, Sean pulled Billy into a hug.

Letting go, Sean seemed to dither a bit, scuffing his shoes while Billy looked on with the sort of intensity and content that could melt the entire world’s problems away from Dom’s mind.

Sean pulled open the door and bee-lined for the kitchen immediately, saying ruefully, “What are you looking at?” as he passed. Chris thrust a plate of pie into his hands with instructions to go apologize to his daughter, while Billy strolled up to Dom looking triumphant.

“Did you make a friend?” Dom asked, when Sean had taken the plate to the living room to do what he was told.

“I might have done,” Billy shoved his hands in his pockets and bounced on his heels. “Do I get pie?”

“Apple, pumpkin or chocolate cheesecake,” Chris listed the choices.

“Apple, I guess.”

“Cheesecake,” Dom coughed, “He’ll have cheesecake, and I will too.”

“Why can’t I have apple?” Billy pouted.

“Well, you _could_ ,” Dom shrugged, “I just won’t mention the teaspoon of cinnamon that went into that and the pumpkin–“

“Cheesecake’s fine,” Billy said, and took his plate without complaint.

Taking their plates to the living room, Allie hopped off the sofa and settled on the floor with her pie on the coffee table. “I saved you seats, see?”

“Thank you, love!” Billy fawned, settling down as though this was the best seat in the house, and Dom only grinned at the mental image from her dollhouse in his head, aside from the fact that Sean occupied the other end.

The score was 29 to 11, and apparently Mack’s team was losing.

“Christine this pie is simply perfect. My Bea couldn’t even beat this,” Ian scraped his pie plate with his fork for the remaining crumbs, though he’d been certain earlier that the last time he’d eaten so much was at Bea’s last Christmas shindig.

“Don’t go complimenting me, it’s from the bakery on fifty-eighth. I had to order it months ago.”

“Chris doesn’t think her baking is on par with the rest of her cooking,” Sean simpered, still obviously submitting to the queen.

“By the look of your gut, I’d say it’s great,” Mackie threw in, though he was carefully sharing his serving with Lizzie.

“Shut up,” Sean glowered. “You’re uninvited.”

“Every year.”

“Mommy makes good birthday cake,” Allie said, “This year I got to pick and so she’s making me raspberry… no, _vanilla_ raspberry, with real raspberries. On Monday, 'cause that’s my birthday. I still have to go to school though.”

“My goodness,” Billy said, playing to her attentions. “How old will you be?”

“Nine,” She blushed, then looked up, “When’s your birthday, Uncle Billy?”

Billy did a double-take at the name, but smiled, “Oh, mine was in August, we just passed it by.”

"How old are you?"

"Old," Billy grinned. "Older than dirt."

"But not as old as I am!" Ian piped up with a grin, though he had appeared to be sleeping.

“Did you get presents?” Allie asked.

“I got the best present. That’s when I came to New York to stay with Dom, see.”

Allie smiled, and Dom smiled. Sean looked bewildered at his pie plate, still puzzling out the Uncle Billy bit.

“Last year, Uncle Dommie and me had a birthday party together, because ours are close together. We should do it again!”

“Oh, Allie, I don’t think we should this time, with you’re school and stuff,” Dom clamored. Sean and Christine were noticeably all for not doing it again. Between Thanksgivings and Christmases and babies and work, it was all just a bit too much for all involved, except maybe Allie.

“When is your birthday?” Billy asked, quietly, while Christine talked Allie out of the idea. “Soon? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“It’s December eighth, but don’t worry about it, Bills, really,” Dom cringed, “I don’t want any big fuss. We didn’t do anything for yours.”

“You took me out for Thai,” Billy disagreed, grinning, “And later on, I remember a lot of celebrating.”

“Yeah, but…”

“How about this, then,” Billy pursed his lips decisively, lifting his chin, “ _I_ take _you_ out for dinner, and then we come home and celebrate. It’s fair and equal.”

Dom couldn’t help but smile. This month had altogether just been too much, with Ryan and the mess at work and worrying about next month and his father. Now, Billy was the one who had his shit together, almost back to the beginning.

“Yeah, all right,” he decided, “Just no surprises, okay?”

“Promise, love.”

Mackie’s team scored and he yelled, waking Ian momentarily. Allie finished her ice cream and colored quietly in a book on the coffee table. Lizzie fell asleep curled between Chris and Mack across the room. Sean put his legs across Dom and Billy’s thighs and leaned back against the cushions to watch the game play out. Dom put his head on Billy’s shoulder and wished, just for a moment, that there wasn’t anything worth troubling over outside of these four walls.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...and counting.

_Friday, December 8th_

“Oh, I finally heard from your brother today. He said he ought to be here for the holidays, as long as the weather isn’t too rough through France.”

“Yeah?” Dom strode slowly down the sidewalk as his mother’s voice carried over the line, people passing him on either side in their rush for the subway.

“I just cannot believe he went and got himself a _motorbike_ , Dommie. I swear he’ll be the death of me one day. As if that smelly old car wasn’t bad enough, I have nightmares of scraping him off the pavement as well…”

“He can take care of himself, Mum,” Dom consoled, “He’s held up this long.”

“Whatever, you’re not his mother, are you? And don’t you even dare think about following along in his footsteps,” Aureen sighed down the line, “Anyway. How are you? How’s work?”

“Work is work, it doesn’t change much,” Dom evaded the question, switched hands on his phone, tucking the cold one into his pocket. He peered through the chain-link surrounding a school playground on his way to the Metro station. School was long out for the day, though several boys shot hoops on one of the half-courts, their breath puffing in the cold air.

“How is Billy?”

He glanced at his watch and paused, leaning against a building just outside of the subway entrance, “He’s good.”

“That’s all?” she prodded, “You know, I know nothing about this man aside from the fact you’re dating him, and living together already. So mysterious, Dommie. I have no idea what to get him for Christmas.”

“You don’t have to get him anything,” Dom told her. “You don’t have to get me anything either, come to that.”

“Tosh, I’ve invited him, of course I have to get him something. I’d look a fool otherwise.”

“He just… he’s the sort that doesn’t do presents,” Dom said, dithering before blurting out the one niggling thing that had been on his mind, “Has Dad said anything about this? I mean, should I be booking a hotel or anything? Because I don’t know if I–“

“If your father has things to say, he’ll say them to you under his own roof, and the two of you will sort this out,” she cut him off. “And you’ll say your bit as well, I hope. You’re my baby boy, Dommie, and I will not have this pettiness keep our family apart anymore.”

He could hear her voice swell up across the line and bit his tongue, sorry he’d brought it up.

She sniffled, and muttered, “Of course, you’re not a little boy anymore, are you? Thirty years, I can’t believe it. I hardly know what you look like, and you never send pictures.”

“Rub it in,” he teased, putting a smile in his words for her benefit. “Anyway, I haven’t got a camera anymore, the old one broke. Sorry, Mum, but I’ve got to go, or I’ll miss the train home,” he started down the stairs, seeing that he had only minutes to spare.

“All right, I ought to get up to bed anyway, it’s late. You email me some gift ideas, then, hmm? Happy birthday, love.”

He said goodnight and rung off as the mobile's signal was lost, weaving between commuters and slipping through the closing doors of the car just in time. It was packed and he ended up standing with a tight grip on a hand loop and another on his briefcase, trying to keep it from bumping an old lady in the knees for the seven minute ride to Forest Hills.

As the train announced his stop, he pushed forward and hurried out the doors with the rest of the six-thirty throng. He’d tugged his tie and collar loose in the heat of the train, but as he climbed the stairs the wind blew cold and fetid, exhaust from the cars and buses clinging close to the pavement, already several degrees colder and darker than it had been when he’d descended into the underground. Shivering, he buttoned his coat and started towards home. Home and Billy and a blessed weekend and the possibility of not thinking for a few minutes, in that order. A few minutes were all it seemed like he could spare these days.

He tried remembering birthdays that had been better, but that only led him to particular memory, shattered glass and splintered balsawood, his father’s silence, and the trip loomed once again. A trip where he not only was going home to a parent who didn’t want him or any other disgraceful queer there, but a holiday where he was expected to work out that miniscule yet enormous disagreement and put the world all back in order. He gritted his teeth and walked faster among the crowd.

“It’s a bit early for a midlife crisis, Dommeh.”

Dom looked sharply toward the speaker. Out of thin air, Billy strode calmly along with him. “I… what are you… what?”

Billy chuckled, “I’ve been beside you since you crossed Queens Boulevard.”

“You have?” Dom gaped. “But I thought we were meeting at home.”

“I figured I’d meet you instead. Hungry?”

“Starving. Where are we going?”

Billy stopped where he was, pulling Dom out of the way of the crowds. He looked around speculatively, up and down the street, and then pointed to a little Bukharian place across the traffic. “That all right?”

Dom shrugged and nodded, “Never one to plan ahead, eh Bills?”

“Actually, I thought about leaving you clues, leading you to the Waldorf or somewhere equally ridiculous, but that went all to shite,” Billy grinned as they crossed the street, “I don’t have near as many accomplices to do my dirty work here.”

“I don’t know if I have the energy for that tonight,” Dom smiled apologetically.

“Feeling our age, are we?” Billy teased, holding open the door to the restaurant, “C’mon. I’ll ask if they do discounts for the elderly.”

“Shush, you,” Dom grumbled, “Maybe they have a two-for-one geezer special.”

The restaurant was warm and the air thick with spices as they were taken to a cozy half-circle booth where they could scoot together, rather than be across from each other. They were given a basket of steaming, chewy bread almost before they were settled. Dom let Billy order beer for the both of them, looked through the menu and decided on kebabs, then leaned back with a long sigh.

“So, how was your day?” Billy asked.

Dom cringed inwardly and didn’t look up. “You don’t want me answer that.”

“I asked because I want to know,” Billy countered. “You don’t talk about it voluntarily anymore.”

“Fine,” Dom snapped, “Today I took a baby from a house where his mother was murdered in front of him, and he sat in his playpen looking at her on the floor for who knows how long before anyone found him. And then, I talked to a fifteen year old kid who’s been in the system since he was four. He got picked up and taken to juvie for being involved in some heroin ring that his foster parents have apparently been part of for _years_. People I’ve trusted to look after these kids. And he wouldn’t say a word to me, aside from a few I don’t think you want to hear. And then I came back and did reports and got yelled at for being ten minutes late this morning, because the train had a glitch. That was my day, Bill. How was yours?”

Billy looked struck and said nothing. Dom tore a piece of bread apart, chewing without really tasting it, trying to simply let the day go. He knew how to detach from it all, and that counted on not bringing it all home with him, on not seeing pain of any kind on Billy’s face. He washed down the bread with a swig of beer, and reached for Billy’s hand. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Billy squeezed his fingers, “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“You shouldn’t have to not ask,” Dom frowned, then shook his head at his own words. “That didn’t make sense. But you shouldn’t have to… I shouldn’t be… I can’t.”

“Easy, Dommeh,” Billy murmured soothingly, “I get it.”

Dom took a deep breath and raised Billy’s knuckle up to his lips, seeking warmth and comfort as much as trying to salvage the evening. “How was your day?”

Billy smiled, “Today, I went to work. I sold three guitar tab books and a harmonica to a bloke with dreadlocks down to his knees. And then I watched Alejandro cut a new fretboard for this amazing Gibson owned by somebody who used to be in the Steve Miller Band. And then I swept the floor. And it went along like that until about three, and I totaled my till and found out it was three dollars and forty-nine cents short.”

Their food arrived, and they had to shift a bit apart for elbow room. Dom’s lamb kebabs were still sizzling, and the spicy flavours were delicious. Even as he ate, though, the dread was a lead weight in his stomach. Soon, even the refuge he had in time with Billy would be threatened. What would his father say? Dom had imagined every scenario, from his dad outright ignoring the elephant in the room to having an all-out screaming row about it with his mother somewhere in the middle trying to be sweet to everyone, like she always was, and Matt choosing a side that might not be his own for all he knew, and none of them were situations he felt even halfway ready for.

He felt Billy’s hand drop to his knee and squeeze. “Quit that. And here, try this,” he held out of forkful of pilaf for Dom to taste.

While Dom chewed the savory mouthful, Billy rubbed his thumb over the crease between his brows. “You’re thinking too hard, Dommeh. I can practically hear the wheels going in there.”

“I just want it to work out,” Dom fretted, “I just… I need something to go right for a change.” Dom felt his facade cracking.

“All right,” Billy put his fork down, and took Dom’s from him as well. “Listen. All the world has gone to hell. I get that, trust me, I really do. So close your eyes.” Dom just peered at him suspiciously. “Close them, Dommeh.”

“Keep them closed,” Billy reiterated, shifting on the seat, “Now tell me, without looking: what is good, right now?”

Dom kept his eyes closed. He felt Billy’s arm go behind him on the cushion and tensed, expecting some unpleasant surprise. “Bills, I don’t understand–“

“Shh,” warm breath tickled his neck, and Billy murmured low in his ear, “What feels good, right now?”

Dom jumped a bit, feeling Billy’s slightly cool nose brush behind his ear, the flutter of eyelashes on his cheek. The hand behind him curled and rubbed at his neck, short fingernails scratching lightly from his collar up into his hair. “You. That.”

“What sounds good, Dommeh?” A smile laced his words.

“Your voice.”

“No peeking,” something warm and moist brushed his lips. “What tastes good?”

He opened his mouth for the buttery bit of food Billy had given him. “That, whatever that is.”

“What smells good?”

“Garlic. Bialy bread. Lamb kebabs.” Dom inhaled, catching amongst the heavy spices a familiar woody smell, “You.”

“Open your eyes. What is good, Dommeh?” Billy asked, “Right now.”

Dom blinked, looking around at the dim hubbub of other diners, the low sound of the music and the rolling tones of Bukhori spoken by the staff, the rich smells of the food, the bitter tang of beer, the warmth of their little booth, a full stomach, Billy’s knuckles sliding slowly up and down the back of his neck, the sawdust smell on his clothes, the heat of his thigh. Billy had taken him out for his birthday dinner and he was so busy worrying and harping that he couldn’t just stop… and be still.

“Rowboats.”

“Rowboats,” Billy parroted, eyebrows knitted in bemusement, “Shite, but you need a vacation, love.”

“Exactly,” Dom laughed, “That day in Fiji, in the rowboat, with the cicadas. That’s what you mean.”

“Aye,” Billy smiled, the intensity in his eyes growing more serious, “We’ve come a ways from there, haven’t we?”

They had, and yet everything Dom had worried about that day in the mangroves still mattered. “I still need that rowboat sometimes.”

“So do I, Dommeh,” he gave Dom’s hair a final tug and moved his hands to Dom’s. “But even in the worst places, you can stop, look around and take stock of things. Sometimes it’s all that gets you through, and makes you believe the next day won't be so bad.”

“Tell me one,” Dom asked hesitantly, “From before we met. Tell me something that got you through the next day.”

Billy sat back, his eyes searching over Dom’s face thoughtfully. He reached for the last piece of bread and tore it in half, giving one to Dom. He dabbed his own half with a bit of oil and chewed a bite before answering.

“The night Gavin found me,” he said, “I was so stupid. This lad I was up against, he was thin as a beanpole but he hit like a hammer, and he was so fast. And I asked for it too, I got cocky. I put every pound I had down, which wasn’t much. He beat me fair and square, and then he beat me some more.

“Anyway, I lay there, and I just remember looking up at the moon. It was a full moon, and I watched it until my eyes swelled closed. Everything went sort of fuzzy, so I don’t remember actually saying it, but Gavin said that when he picked me up, I smiled at him and said, ‘I still have all my teeth’.”

It was meant to make him laugh, but Dom could only wince at the thought of Billy, broken and lying in the filth of the street. Billy shook his head at the memory, but smoothed Dom’s brow again with his thumb apologetically, “You asked me.”

“I know.”

Billy shrugged. “It was a long time ago. And it’s not something I’ll take up again, I promise you that.”

Dom nodded, accepting the promise. Billy didn’t make them lightly.

“Do you want pudding?” Billy changed the subject, “Or do you want to go to a film? It’s your birthday, your decision.”

“I’m tired, Bills. I just want to go home.”

“Home it is. Let’s stop all this ruminating and celebrate how ancient you are, hmm?”

Billy paid for dinner without allowing Dominic to even look at the check, and ushered him out into the frosty night and down the block.

“Mum called,” Dom recalled on the way, “Asked me what she should get you for Christmas.”

Billy’s answer was quick and expected, “She doesn’t have to get me anything.”

“She will anyway,” Dom told him, punching in the entry code at their building and holding the door open for Billy, “She’s like that.”

“Just like you,” Billy shot back wryly, pausing by the mailboxes and fishing his key ring from his pocket.

“I don’t know about that,” Dom muttered quietly, already halfway up the first stairwell. He waited at the landing for Billy to catch up, but after a minute and no Billy, he started back down, “Bills?”

Billy stood frozen in the foyer by the open mailbox, staring down at an envelope in his hand.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Past, present, and future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is only a graphic. If it doesn't show up, please let me know.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arrival at many destinations.

_Friday, December 22nd_

“Do you want the window seat?”

Dom pushed his bag into the overhead compartment, lifting Billy’s up beside it and shifting both to fit, then shrugged, “It doesn’t matter, it’s dark out.”

“You have it, then.”

The glow of yellowish lights illuminated the late night tarmac. Out the little portal, airline workers scurried like ants around the plane as Dom settled in his cramped seat. It would be a red-eye to London, arriving at his parent’s house by mid-morning of the twenty-third. An entire night would pass them by in only a few scant hours.

The plane began rolling placidly on its way to the runway and the attendants went about their impending disaster motions. Dom paid them only vague attention, flipping through the in-flight magazines. Tucking them back in the seat pocket, he noticed Billy’s grip on the armrest between them was enough to make the scar on his knuckle stand out bright pink on white, and his knee bounced up and down in the limited leg-room. Arching a brow at him, he peeled Billy’s fingers up to lace with his own.

Billy laughed, stilling himself, “This is, erm… this is my second plane ride.”

It took Dom a second to remember that as many places as Billy had been in his life, he’d arrived at all of them by ship or train, save one flight only, from New Zealand to New York. “Was the first so bad?”

“I decided somewhere along the line drowning at sea would be a lot more tolerable without falling out of the sky first,” Billy muttered.

The attendants took their seats as the plane began picking up speed to lift from the safety of the earth. Billy’s fingers were sweaty, and he blinked away from the lights of the city speeding by the window to meet Dom’s eyes instead, “Tell me something stupid.”

Dom dutifully slid the shade closed. “Like what?”

“Anything, Dom. Silliest thing you can think of.”

Dom grinned at the mild terror in Billy’s face and said the first stupid thing that came to mind. “In my dreams, you always wear a tux.”

Billy giggled a little madly. “Always?”

“…Well, no, but usually in the beginning.”

The plane lifted off with the stomach lurch of a high-rise lift, rising farther and steeper, until the angle and velocity at which it climbed seemed impossible without flipping nose over tail.

“Oh,” Billy gasped and his smile dropped away, his eyes still fastened to Dom’s and looking mildly struck.

“It’s all right,” Dom squeezed the hand wrapped in his, “It’ll straighten out in just a bit.”

Billy closed his eyes and nodded tightly, and Dom leaned over to purr in his ear, “You wear your tux, and usually you’ve got a glass of whiskey in your hand, and you’re perched in an armchair like Double-Oh Seven, watching me do very bad, very naughty things, until you feel so inclined to join me.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” Billy murmured back, the clench of his teeth relaxing somewhat, “Thinking about joining the Mile High Club?”

“No,” Dom laughed, “That’s something I’d rather not explain to my father when they arrest us at the airport.”

“Always the good boy,” Billy teased. "I bet your brother has."

Dom chuckled and lifted his chin at the very pretty brunette stewardess who had just stood up in the tail end nearby to ready the drinks cart, “Five bucks says I could mention his name and get this one to blush.”

An hour later, the majority of the plane was only dim light and silence as passengers dozed. As the third seat in their row was empty, Billy had tucked up his knees and pillowed his head on Dom’s thigh, falling asleep before midnight by Dom’s watch. The stewardess came by to offer a blanket, and helped him spread it over Billy with a silent smile.

Dom himself had rarely been able to sleep on plane trips, no matter how tired he was. Yawning, he slid the window open again and sat watching the blackness of the sky and the ocean roll by below. It didn’t take long for his mind to wander back to where it churned most.

He’d stayed late at the office that evening, making calls and going through paperwork, tidying up anything unfinished for the end of the year. The prospect of not being in the same country at the end of a quarter with its the plague of bad cases had him exhausted. He went over them all in his head, case by case, step by step, trying to see where they’d gone wrong, what should have been done differently. Surely if he recounted them enough, he’d stumble on the one mistake he’d made, the misstep he needed to correct, but no matter how many hours he spent, he couldn’t find it.

He tried to remember how he’d got here, to this state of mind. Years ago, when he’d first stepped off a plane with all his earthly belongings in two suitcases, he’d struck off into the bright lights of New York feeling like the entire world was wide open to him. He’d thrown himself through graduate school and into his internship. He’d followed Sean around like a puppy, and looked to Cate with awe. When he’d got himself in too deep emotionally, they’d always yanked him back out. These days, it felt like they were all just treading in deep water, and there was no shore in sight.

Shiloh’s face would swim across his mind as if she’d begun it, she was where it had started, she was where he’d screwed up. She’d smile, the way she always had from a hospital bed, forgiveness for his broken promises to keep her safe. She’d been the first, as if she took the blame. Dom snatched it back angrily, guiltily.

The thing was, it was never _not_ this bad. In seven years of social work in Queens, Dom had seen plenty of cases like these. Abuse, neglect, drugs, murders, divorces, illness; it was always there. This was what it was to work in the inner city child welfare department. People weren’t getting worse; they had always been this bad. And Dominic Monaghan, Queens County Child Welfare Officer, was a spectacular failure, because in the end, he simply couldn’t take the heat.

He looked down at Billy’s face, relaxed now, oddly childlike in sleep. The _Manaia_ pendant hung in the vee of Billy’s collar, mocking him. It didn’t do what Billy said it would, back on the ship. It was no guardian of the helpless, and neither was he. Dom wanted to shake him awake and confess his deepest secret. _I don’t think I can do it anymore_.

He wanted the fight. He wanted Billy’s disappointment, his rejection. He wanted the questions that buzzed around and stung his mind. _What about your kids? What would Sean say? Who will do it if you don’t?_ He wanted to be told he was being stupid, overreacting, that he just needed to give it time and reorganize his plans and that he couldn’t quit. Not now.

But Billy slept, soft and untroubled by his fears, the same way he had been on the ship, when he’d known and accepted without a fight that their perfect few days together would end. Billy wouldn’t argue this. He would shrug and say it was Dom’s choice. So Dom let him sleep, tracing a finger along the little parentheses framing Billy’s mouth, watching his eyelids flutter at the touch, his lips part and sigh, and then settle back into contentment. He lay his hand on Billy’s chest and counted the steady, unrelenting beat there, and swallowed his shame down once again.

Outside the little window, rolling ocean eventually gave way to rugged, white-capped mountains, tinged with the orange fire of a far too early sunrise, and the little LCD map in the back of the seat showed him they’d just flown over Scotland’s highland coast. “Welcome home, Bills,” he whispered, though Billy slept on.

Finally, they’d spilled out into the bustle of Heathrow and collected their bags, piling into the back of a cab as the sun tried and failed to penetrate the incorrigible London fog settling icily over the world like a blanket. It took only ten minutes for them to be deposited on the curb of a pleasant enough Hounslow neighborhood, and up the walk of a house with a number and address matching the one Dom had written on the back of his hand.

“Should I be expecting anything?” Billy asked, glancing up at the house and looking far more rested than Dom felt.

Dom found himself looking at Billy objectively for the first time in ages, now that they were here. In his daydreams back in college, when he’d first lived on his own and out, he’d imagined bringing home someone so incredibly perfect, someone so beautiful that his parents would forget the whole issue of gender entirely. Now he was bringing home a plain, pasty, middle-aged and ginger-haired Scot who wasn’t the least bit extraordinary at first glance, or even the second, or the fifth. Would his parents – _his father_ – even condescend to see the sort of person Billy was underneath his unassuming disguise? Would they be disappointed?

Billy glanced back at him, waiting for an answer with that soft smile, the same one that drew Dom in, even while he was kicking and screaming against it on their last, _first_ holiday. They’d finally arrived at this point in this strange backwards relationship together, at meeting the parents. Dom wanted to turn around and go back home, or better, fly away somewhere far from work and family and anything else that threatened the one tiny bubble of happiness he had. But all he could do was shoulder his rucksack and approach the front door.

“Mum will fret over me, and then she’ll fret over you, and then she’ll fret over us both and continue on in that general pattern until we leave. And Dad… I don’t know what he’ll do.”

He took a deep breath and rang the bell, smiling at the muffled tones of his mother’s voice announcing that they must be here, a second before she pulled the door open to the chill. “Mum!”

“Ah, here’s my boy home at last!” she crowed, simultaneously hugging him and pulling him inside. “Come in, come on, you’ll catch your death, both of you. In!”

After the door closed, she turned and studied the two of them side by side, “You must be Billy, then?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“None of that,” she said sternly, giving him a polite hug, “It’s Aureen, dear. Happy Christmas.”

“Happy Christmas to you.”

“Just drop those bags, I’ll have Austin take them to the guest room. Let me get your coat.”

“Oh no, it’s all right.”

“I’m sure it is, but I’ll take it just the same. Austin! The boys are here, shift your arse!”

Dom met Billy’s smiling eyes over his mother’s shoulder, dealing with his own coat while she wasn’t looking. He’d expected his mum to be no less than cordial, she always was, at least in company.

Turning back to Dom, she held him at arms length for another look and fussed with the collar of his shirt, touched his rather fuzzy cheek. “My goodness. Last I saw you, you were still a lanky little weed. Now look at you. Austin, look how he’s grown up.”

Dom dropped his eyes bashfully at his mum’s fussing, taking a steeling breath before looking up at the figure of his father. “Merry Christmas, Dad.”

Austin came forward from the archway in the hall and extended a hand to shake, “Dominic.”

Dom took it, firmly, confused by the mixed feelings bungling themselves up in his throat. That his father had aged was a shock, and sent home how long it had really been. His hair was thinner, his beard peppered with grey and the lines around his eyes carved deep. He looked so much less severe than the image Dom always had of him. Ten years of time gone, and all they could do for it was a shake hands like strangers?

He let go and shuffled back, swallowing the emotion that tried to push its way up. Defiance and challenge felt better, and with it he took Billy’s shoulder possessively and raised his chin, “This is Billy Boyd.”

“Pleasure to meet you, sir,” Billy stepped forward confidently, extending his own hand with a wry grin, “I’m appropriately terrified.”

Austin studied Billy the way he might observe an unpredictable lab experiment, and they shook with business-like assurance. “I can only imagine,” he said.

“Well, let’s not linger in the doorway, the living room’s far warmer,” Aureen supplied, ushering them down the hall, “Austin, their bags in the first floor guest room, please? Make yourself useful.”

His father did as he was told, and Dom questioned his mum as they followed her through the house, “Are we in the same room?”

“Of course, dear.”

“How does he feel about that?”

“No idea, I didn’t bother to ask his opinion,” she looked back cheekily. “Besides, we’ve only got the sleeper sofa in the other room, and that will be for Matt. He said to expect him today or tomorrow.”

Billy grinned softly at Dom as they entered the living room, “That wasn’t so bad, eh?”

“Yeah,” Dom muttered, “He acknowledged your presence.”

“Piece of cake. I once knew this remarkably similar bloke. Quiet type, a lot of shite on his mind,” Billy slid his knuckles lightly along Dom’s chin.

“Boys?” Aureen called from the kitchen, “Tea? Coffee? Uppers? Downers?”

“Oh please, coffee,” Dom groaned, rubbing his eyes.

“Thought you’d say that, you look exhausted. I’ll make you some breakfast, I don’t suppose you’ve eaten. Billy, coffee? Do you like eggs and toast?”

“Fine for me, thank you,” Billy called back, tucking his hands in his pockets and examining the room. “I like just about anything you set in front of me.”

He soon found a wall full of photographs, some frames with multiple snapshots. In one, a bright-eyed boy watched with intense interest as a caterpillar inched its way along his finger. In another, the same boy sat beaming astride a great ship’s cannon as if it were a horse, his father holding him safely from behind. A bit older, all ears and knees, he wore a blue and white kit and bent a football at a goal, and nearby wearing the same clothes, pouted sullenly from a hospital bed with a brace on his leg. In another frame he was perched high in a tree, laughing down his brother, and in another, concentrating hard over pieces of a balsa wood ship. In still another he was no more than a toddler, stretching out the waistband of his shorts and peering quite seriously into them over his pudgy belly, while a relative laughed in the background.

Dom shuffled up beside him and groaned, “Can’t I be rendered unconscious before you get to see embarrassing photographs?”

“Absolutely not, this is my right and due,” Billy slid is teeth over his bottom lip, doe-eyed as he gazed at the wall. “Look at you, you’re _adorable_.”

“Unfair,” Dom pouted, “I’ve only seen one of you.”

Billy tore his gaze from the pictures and grinned, sliding a finger along Dom’s smile lines, “See? I knew these came from somewhere. Look at that!” his eyes shifted across the living room.

He crossed the rug to get a better look at the model ship perched on the mantelpiece, more than two feet long and painted brightly in black and golden yellow.

“It’s the _HMS Victory_. Lord Nelson’s flagship,” Dom said, carefully testing the tightness of one of waxed threads that made up the hundreds of rigging lines. “First rate ship of the line at one-eightieth scale. One hundred guns on three decks, fully rigged sails. The real one’s dry-docked in Portsmouth. We went to see her once when I was a kid. Took me and dad most of a year to finish her. I’m surprise she made it down here from Manchester.”

“Barely,” Aureen said from the dining room, setting down plates for them, “We took it in the back of the car so the movers wouldn’t damage it, but your dad still had to fix a few pieces that fell off. The _Queen Mary_ is much better off, it’s in your father’s study. Come and eat.”

Dom sat down and tucked in to his eggs, surprised at how hungry he was. Billy did the same while Aureen seated herself with a cup of tea.

“Well, Dom’s been ever so secretive about you,” Aureen said to Billy, as though she couldn’t help herself, “He said you were a singer on his cruise, and that’s about all I could pry out of him. I thought you might have been a Kiwi.”

“Oh, aye?” Billy smiled across at Dom, “Nah, the Oceanic Line is based out of Sydney, actually, but they hire everywhere they sail. I think the only prerequisite for most of the crew was that you be able say, 'Yes, ma’am, right away,' in English.”

“How did the two of you meet?”

“Strictly speaking? Your lad here left his jacket in my lounge. I returned it.”

Dom chuckled, “He’s leaving out the part after that where he wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“I couldn’t help it!” Billy quipped, “It was in my job description to show only the greatest hospitality. The second time you left it, anyone could have picked it up. It’s a very fine jacket. Might not have been returned at all.”

“Which is why you followed me into Christchurch that day, and every other day after? To mind my jacket?”

“Of course,” Billy answered innocently, “I had no alternative agenda in mind at all.” He tipped Aureen a wink.

Dom grinned wickedly, “Pity I wasn’t wearing a jacket in Christchurch, seeing as it was summer and all.”

As he glanced around the room and at the curio in the corner, the warmth and calm he felt at this conversation abruptly drained. Amongst the plates and tea sets and other things once belonging to grandparents sat a ship inside a bottle. He set down his fork and got up to look closer, déjà vu flinging its way through his senses as Billy’s voice and his mum’s laughter rolled in the background.

“Oh, that’s the _Cutty Sark_ , dear, you remember?” Aureen said from behind him, explaining to Billy, “Dom got that one for his fifteenth birthday. Absolutely insisted on building it himself, he didn’t want Austin to help at all. He’d spend hours up in his room working on it. We’d moved across town then, and he didn’t know many kids at the new school, so he spent all his time on that ship. He’s so meticulous in his projects, this one. Anyway, the time came to raise the sails in the bottle, the last step… and they wouldn’t come up. Dommie was so upset, he smashed the thing on the front steps and cried and cried. Old enough not to, by then. His father bought him a whole new kit but he wouldn’t touch it, wouldn’t have anything more to do with ships after that. Austin only found it in our last move down here a few years ago, and built it himself for old times sake.”

This _Cutty Sark_ was not smashed. The sleek clipper ship sailed in minuscule scale inside a cider jug with three full, perfectly upright masts. Dom turned and sat back down to his plate, but his appetite was gone.

“Really,” Billy remarked with interest, eyes watching Dom carefully. “Well, lucky for me it wasn’t the very last ship for him. All right there, Dom?”

“Fine,” Dom answered, pushing his remaining eggs around on his plate and glancing back around the house. “Where’s Dad gone?”

“In the garage, I imagine.”

Dom wrinkled his nose. It had been a dull blow when his mum had phoned some years ago with the news that his dad was smoking again, after having quit at Dom’s fervent childhood request. Now that he was here, the reminder was that much more bitter.

“Maybe you should sleep for a few hours, Dommeh,” Billy reached across the table to cover his hand, concern in his voice, “You’ve been on since early morning, and you worked late today. Yesterday, I guess it is, now.”

He pulled his hand away, avoiding Billy’s gaze, “I’m all right.”

“But surely you slept on the flight over?” his mum asked incredulously. Dom shook his head.

Aureen stood up, taking their plates to the sink, “I think he’s right, Dommie, you look a wreck. You shouldn’t sleep with jetlag, of course, but I think you’ll fall down otherwise. It must be three in the morning for you, isn’t it? Come on, your room’s this way.”

Billy pulled him down the hall and into the guestroom, though he protested the whole way.

“I don’t want to sleep,” he said petulantly, once his mother had left them alone.

“Oh, no?” Billy asked, pushing him down on the bed. “What do you want to do, then?”

When Dom had no answer but to pout and stifle a yawn, Billy knelt at his feet and started unlacing his shoes. “You’re not going to fix it all in one go,” he sighed, reading Dom’s mind.

“ _You’d_ know, wouldn’t you?”

Billy eyed him warningly, but let it slide, “You get so prickly when you’re exhausted.”

“M’not _prickly_.”

“You’re not, hmm?” Billy pushed him down on the pillow, sitting on the edge of the bed beside him.

Dom’s eyelids got heavy as soon as he was horizontal, though he fought it. “See? He’s out there, hiding behind his cigarettes. He doesn’t want to talk to me. He doesn’t even want to see me.”

Billy sighed and brushed his thumb over Dom’s furrowed brows, making his eyes close. “I don’t think that’s the way of it.”

Dom snorted unhappily and batted Billy’s hand away.

Billy leaned over him and took his chin firmly in his hand. “He doesn’t know how to talk to you. And you don’t know how to talk to him, do you? That’s what a decade or two will do to people. I think I’d know that better than you.”

He softened his words and his hand, smoothing Dom’s hair where it was getting long over his forehead. “You’re on holiday, naps are allowed. You’ve got twelve whole days to rest now. Sleep, Dommeh.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pride and prejudice.

_Saturday, December 23rd_

“Wake up, Dom,” a gentle hand on his shoulder roused him from a deep dreamless sleep.

Dom groggily raised his head from the pillow to his father’s voice, as it might have been so many years ago waking him to go to school. The room was dim, curtains drawn across the window, the light behind it the cool white of a wintry afternoon of English drizzle. Music was playing from deeper in the house. He turned over and sat up, and the figure standing above him retreated to the door.

The lines creased around Austin’s eyes, like a memory of a smile. He dropped them from Dom’s face, averting his eyes as if from a stranger. He twitched his head toward the music. “You ought to come and join us,” he said quietly, and then disappeared down the hall.

Dom scrubbed a hand over his face and through his hair, the effects of jetlag making him headachy and numb. The clock on the table read 3:57; he’d slept for hours. A glass of water and two paracetamol tabs waited beside the clock. Parched, he drank the full glass down with the tabs and then followed the music down the hallway to its source.

Sinatra’s dulcet tones were overlaid by another, clearer and nearly as familiar, as he approached the living room and stopped in the archway. There, amongst an undressed Christmas tree and boxes of ornaments and a room full of music, Billy was singing and dancing with Dom’s mother.

 _Call me irresponsible  
Call me unreliable  
Throw in undependable too  
Do my foolish alibis bore you?  
Well, I’m not too clever  
I just adore you_

Aureen laughed and laughed as Billy twirled her around, his movements easy and graceful, hers out of practice. He spotted Dom and neatly danced her over to the sofa, ended with a chivalrous kiss to her knuckle, and then pulled Dom into the center of the room and began again, this time letting Dom lead with stumbling steps and a crooked smile.

 _Call me unpredictable  
Tell me I’m impractical  
Rainbows I’m inclined to pursue  
Call me irresponsible  
Yes, I’m unreliable  
But it’s undeniably true  
I’m irresponsibly mad for you_

“Hi,” Billy grinned as the song ended, “Feeling better?”

“Mmm-hm,” Dom smiled at the bit of gold garland Billy had looped around his neck. So this is how it was going to be. The Lounge Singer Romeo was back, and clearly in fine form for charming the living daylights out of Dom’s family, or his mum at the very least. His father had taken up a well-worn leather armchair Dom remembered from years ago, his eyes on the task of untangling a several strings of Christmas lights.

“My goodness,” Aureen laughed airily, catching her breath, “Where did you learn to dance like that?”

“Mostly my gran. She loved the old classics, you know, Ol’ Blue Eyes there, Nina Simone, Bobby Darin.” Billy draped another bit of garland over Dom’s head. “We were going to trim the tree, Dommeh. Trust your family to have an artificial one.”

Still waking up, Dom sat down on the sofa and picked up a box of ornaments, many of which he remembered from childhood, some made by his own hands of construction paper and glitter glue.

“Billy was telling me they never had a tree when he was a boy, Dommie,” his mother said, sympathy on her face.

“No,” Billy sat down beside Dom, draping an arm easily around his shoulders, “Not really. We made paper chains and things. Mostly we just hung our stockings by the door of the flat. No fireplace, you see. I worried terribly as a wee boy that Santa would never come. We always woke up to oranges and butterscotches and crackers in our stockings, though.”

“I can’t imagine it,” Aureen brooded, picking up one of the untangled strings of lights. “Parents gone at fourteen, on your own at sixteen. I just can’t bear the thought of you living in the Tubes at that age.”

Dom looked at Billy, stunned that while he’d slept Billy and his mum were already pouring over his life story. Billy only squeezed and rubbed his shoulder gently in response, picking out an ornament that had a school picture of Dom glued to it with a grin.

“Matt left home at sixteen,” Dom supplied, rolling his eyes at Billy’s glee. He had a ridiculously dorky smile on his face in the picture, and still had a long way to grow into his ears and teeth.

“Matt fancied himself an adult and always had a problem with authority,” she responded haughtily, starting to work the lights onto the tree, “And he was welcome back anytime. As if I’d let either of my boys go cold and hungry.”

“You’d be surprised how much pride goes into sleeping under bridges,” Billy said with a shrug, “I’d have been welcomed home with a hot meal back then as well, I’m sure. But I wouldn’t have been willing to take the tongue-lashing Gran would have given me. She was a tough old bird, make no mistake. And she did her best with such a piece of work as me. The way I saw it, I was taking away a burden. Gran was old, she shouldn’t have still been working just to feed and clothe us.”

“Our kids aren’t meant to be a burden, no matter how much they worry us,” Aureen paused to gaze at Billy, “Anyway, you seem like you turned out all right, that’s all.”

Dom took Billy’s free hand as they exchanged a glance, his own pleased at how his mum had taken to him while Billy’s was more subdued and secret. Billy wasn’t sharing the whole story, and Dom didn’t expect him to.

Across the room, his father handed his mum the last of the knot-free lights and roundly avoided the sight of his son sitting far closer than mates and holding hands with a man. His eyes looked everywhere but at them. It wasn’t so much the anger that festered in Dom’s mind, that his father couldn’t even look at him. It was the way it hurt, deep and low in his chest like a stone. He was such a disappointment that he didn’t warrant being seen for what he was.

“Look at these, Dommeh,” Billy had been digging through a nearby box beside them on the sofa, and came out with a set of ornaments all shaped like chessmen, one red and the other green.

“Yeah,” Dom gave a false laugh, “I’d forgotten about those.”

“Oh, yes!” Aureen exclaimed, “Matt picked those out, years ago. We ought to pull out the set so you boys and your father can play. I was never much good at it. Here, you two, start putting those on the tree, I’m nearly to the top with these lights.”

An hour or two later, the sun had begun to set and the tree gleamed with ornaments, lights and real candy canes, nearly finished, when a knock sounded at the door, _shave and a haircut, two bits_.

“Matt!” Dom yelled, dashing into the front hall to throw open the door.

“Who the bloody hell let you back into England?” Matt jeered immediately, butting past Dom with a heavy pack over one shoulder and gesturing back to the row of houses outside with his helmet, “Don’t you see the neighborhood? Nice conservative upstanding place like this, you can’t be allowed out in daylight.”

“Slipped under the radar,” Dom launched himself at his brother, who was ever taller, better-looking and slick as always in a rain-speckled leather biker’s gear from head to toe. Matt twisted him round and knuckled his head until Dom shrieked, pounding him in the arm, “Where the hell have you been, man?”

“Germany. Austria. Switzerland. Beer, mountains, women, neutrality. It’s great.”

“I hate that motorbike, Mattie,” Aureen fretted as she came to hug her oldest son. “In winter as well, the wet roads…”

“You know worrying you to death was half the point, Mum,” Matt nodded as if he’d heard it all before, kissing his mother’s cheek before stripping off his outer gear to jeans and a somewhat frayed jumper. “I’m starving. When’s dinner?”

“In a bit, if you give me a chance to finish it.”

“What happened to the Citröen?” Dom asked.

“She went to Heaven, little bro, like all good cars and dogs,” Matt grinned, working at the buckles on his boots.

Dom tried to fix his hair as he took his place back on the sofa in the living room, peeking out the front curtains at the shiny black crotch-rocket Matt was riding around these days. “Matt, this is Billy. Bills, Matt.”

“The infamous Matt,” Billy set down an empty ornament box and offered his hand. “I hope you live up to the tales I’ve heard, mate.”

Matt didn’t accept, looking Billy up and down and up again, cocky wariness in his stance, before giving Dom a disbelieving smirk, “Shite, Dom, I’d have been all right with the queens in Soho, or even a pretty Yankee boy, but a Weegie? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Matthew!” Aureen scolded, aghast.

“We left the pretty Yankee boy in Zed,” Billy quipped without missing a beat. “And Londoners are a bit too posh and limp-wristed for either of us, I think.”

Matt gave him another once-over and a shit-eating grin, engaging him in a complex handshake that Billy already seemed to know. “Yeah, all right. Just remember, anyone messes with my kid brother–”

“–answers to you, aye. So I’ve been told.”

“Just in case you weren’t under enough pressure from dear old Dad, there.”

“Hug your father, you scoundrel,” Aureen glanced skyward on her way into the kitchen.

Soon after, with the tree finished and sparkling, they were settled around the table and led in a distinctly uncomfortable Grace before the chicken was served.

“I don’t understand why they’d make you work right up to your flight,” Aureen told Dom, continuing a conversation from setting the table. “Everyone needs a day to prepare for that kind of travel.”

“They didn’t make me, Mum,” Dom answered shortly, “I had end of the year reports, follow-ups and pending case projections, that sort of thing. It doesn’t end just because I’m on vacation.”

“Well, of course it doesn’t,” she retorted. “I only worry about the effect it has on you, that’s all. That poor girl on the international news back in September, it must have been dreadful. In such a nice neighborhood too. You can’t tell me that doesn’t upset you. I do hope that sort of thing doesn’t happen often.”

Dom shoveled in a large mouthful of potatoes so he wouldn’t be expected to answer. Billy’s knee settled against his under the table.

“I’m interested in knowing where the money for that motorbike came from,” Austin asked Matt, making Dom profoundly grateful for the change of subject. “All that gear couldn’t have come cheap.”

“Always with these questions!” Matt gaped incredulously across the table at Dom and Billy, “Any time I get something cool, it’s as if they think I knocked over a bank.”

“Did you?” Aureen eyed him sideways, “Considering we haven’t seen any of the last loan we gave you back.”

“Of course not!” Matt railed. But his parents still waited for an explanation, and he rolled his eyes, “Fine, if you must spoil your own Christmas presents… I was working at a winery most of the summer. Met this girl whose father’s best mate’s in-laws own this vineyard near Gumpoldskirchen.”

“Wait,” Dom held out a hand, “You mean to say you held a job? For more than a month? And you earned money?”

“I know, right?” Matt gestured widely, “It’s this thing called saving. You earn more than you need, so you put a little away for something special, see, and pretty soon, you’re all done up in leather and you’ve got this beautiful piece of machinery between your legs. The women go wild.”

Even Austin had to chuckle at that. Aureen wiped tears from her eyes, all the while scolding him for appropriate dinner conversation.

“See, I figured it the same way,” Billy announced smugly, “Cruise ships, though. A sight bigger than a motorbike, and the tux does attract a rather different sort of girl.”

Dom batted his eyelashes while Matt wolf-whistled.

“You were a singer,” Dom’s father asked, addressing Billy for the first time, “And what are you doing now for work?”

“I manage the till at a guitar shop in Lower Manhattan. The owner does restoration out of the back, some nice work.”

Austin dropped his eyes back to cutting up his chicken, “And you don’t find that to be a step down, do you?”

“Not really,” Billy answered calmly, “Alejandro’s apprenticing me in restoration. He’s… ehm,” he glanced at Dom, “He’s asked me to go full time when we get back, work more in the restoration than managing the shop. I’m inclined to think it’s a fair trade.”

Dom blinked at this surprise, startled but happy. Billy would get the experience he wanted and needed to restore Holly, and he’d be paid to do it.

But Austin didn’t look overly impressed. “Sometimes it’s difficult to get into a new trade as you get older.”

“I’ve had many jobs, sir,” Billy said, “I’ve been a lowly cashier and I’ve tended racehorses worth millions. I’ve built a few of the fine buildings here in London, and I’ve busked my way from city to city. The job doesn’t much matter to me. If I need money, I work for it. My payment for singing on that ship was no more than room and board, so all things considered, it’s the same objective as any other.”

Quiet triumph swelled in Dom at that, and he darted a glance to see Matt nodding too.

“Cost of living in New York is as much as it is here, I expect,” Austin said pointedly, “How does a cashier’s salary help Dominic maintain your room and board in his flat?”

That was a deliberate low blow. Dom’s fork pinged against his plate as he glared across at his father warningly. He laid a hand over Billy’s where it had tightened to a fist beside his plate. The tension under his palm loosened immediately, as Billy dropped his eyes to his plate and pulled his hand away. They both knew the answer was that it didn’t help, not by much, and that was capable of striking the one nerve that could bring Billy’s confidence and charm to a grinding halt.

Austin shook his head condescendingly, “A job is a job, true, but I wonder why you wouldn’t try to go forward instead of back.”

“Said the school teacher,” Matt piped brightly.

“Mum could have been a nurse,” Dom pointed out, loudly, “It’s the most in-demand job in the world, nursing. She could have gone anywhere, could have worked for doctors on the verge of curing cancer. She could have been out there saving lives. Now all she does is paperwork. Oh, and keep your house and cook your supper.”

“Dominic!”

He ignored her and lifted his chin, “I was under the impression that I was raised in a family where my partner’s worth wasn’t dictated by his job.”

“Don’t you get smart with me,” his father snapped, but Aureen stopped them both with her hands up, “Please, Austin, Dommie, it’s Christmas, let’s not argue over the table.”

Dom set his jaw and continued to glare daggers across his plate. Austin merely wiped his mouth, pushed his chair back and left them there without looking back, not unlike he had at another supper when Dom had had an opinion to express about partners.

“ _Shit_ , Dom,” Matt pointed a finger across the table at him, then at the hallway where their father had retreated, grinning wildly, “I never thought I’d see the day you grew a pair. That was… you were… I owe you a pint.”

“Matthew,” Aureen said warningly, “Dominic, you really shouldn’t have provoked him that way.”

“Yes he should have,” Matt grinned, still eyeing Dom appraisingly, “Stings to know he’s wrong, doesn’t it?”

Billy laid his napkin beside his plate and made to get up, “I should go explain–“

“You should sit,” Dom said, pulling him back down, “And finish Mum’s beautiful supper, hmm?” He squeezed Billy’s hand, riding on the pride of having won that round. He wanted to do a fair bit more provoking before this visit was through.

The tension in Billy’s face settled a little as he tucked back in, “It’s a fantastic meal, Aureen, really. Dom must have learnt to cook from you.”

Dom pressed his leg against Billy’s under the table as they finished. That would be the first of many discussions on this holiday. He’d rather they pressed more of his own bruises than the few Billy had left.

Billy insisted on helping Aureen clear up, good naturedly taking Matt’s jibes for blatant brown-nosing. Dom’s temper had cooled, and with the others occupied with the dishes, he found his way to the garage. It felt odd, knocking on the door before opening it to find exactly what he expected: the garage door open to the drizzle of the street, the weirdness of it being dark again when he’d only been up for a few hours, and his father leaning against the station wagon with an ashtray three butts deep and lighting up a fourth.

Dom closed the house door behind him and made his way forward, into the fresher, colder air, glad for the jumper he wore. Billy was right, however, he didn’t know how to start this.

“We’re going to Mass tomorrow evening.”

Taken aback that his dad had spoken first, Dom nodded, “All right.”

“Your friend can stay here.”

“His name is Billy,” Dom corrected. “And I’m sure he won’t mind coming with us.”

His father exhaled a stream of smoke, the hand not clutching the fag tucked under the opposite arm in the chill. “You’re an adult, Dominic, and I can’t make you do anything, but, I… I think you should take Communion with your mother and I. For the holidays.”

Dom pocketed his hands, leaning against a shelf full of paint cans and tools. “I’m not a Catholic anymore.”

Austin was quiet for some time before speaking slowly, “It’s never too late to–” He cut short and did not finish.

Dom looked back up, unable to take that at face value. “What? To what, Dad? Shall I confess that I like fucking men to your latest priest? Say a hundred Hail Mary’s and receive Absolution so _you’ll_ feel better for ten minutes? I’ll just come right back to Billy afterwards.” Dom kept his eyes on his father, keeping his voice low and measured, “I have nothing to confess.”

His father’s face worked and twitched, watching the rain outside and chewing on his thoughts before he spoke again, “It will be at the school’s cathedral.”

Dom nodded, “Right. Matt and I promise to be good boys and not fling spit wads at each other like we used to.”

Austin studied the ashtray beside him, shifting the spent butts around. “My colleagues will be there. The dean… the headmistress… students with their families.”

Dom stared, sickened. His comprehension wasn’t slow to the point, but he couldn’t help wishing he’d hadn’t heard the words between the lines.

“I get it. Of course, your priest would keep his silence, but people you have to work with, eh? That’d be quite the scandal, wouldn’t it? Maybe if my _boyfriend_ isn’t there, I’ll be able to hold down my queer impulses so you can save face in front of your boss.”

“Dominic–”

“–But as you couldn’t even see it right in front of your face for so long –“

“Dom, I didn’t mean–“

“Look at me, for fuck’s sake!” Dom shouted, rage firing hotly through him, ignoring the way his voice echoed through the garage and died under the rain in the street. Austin hesitated, then slowly raised his eyes and finally looked at his son.

“Everything I’ve ever done with my life, I’ve done with you in the back of my mind. Did you know that? Every degree I earned, every day I’ve gone to work, every kid I see beat up and broken and thrown out and dying in a hospital bed, I’ve had you in my head. Every time I have look at them, I see you, telling me I have to be strong, I have to hold the course, I have to be the best. Here I’ve been trying to be the perfect father figure to all the fucked up kids who don’t have one, trying to be _you_.

“And that’s what the whole fucking problem is, isn’t it? All this time, I wasn’t doing it for them.”

Dom glared back at eyes the same shape and color as his own, a face he knew and loved, yet changed with ten years of silence and disappointment and bitter rejection. He held onto the protective shell of his anger as long as he could, but eventually his shoulders drooped under the weight. “I’m never going to be good enough for you, am I?”

His father said nothing, but dropped his eyes as if this was just one more poor mark on an exam. Dom couldn’t even say he’d do better, try harder next time. All he could do was turn and leave, walk numbly through the house, past his mother’s hesitant questions and out into the back garden, where the air was free of the acrid scent of smoke, and the rain pattered down on dormant grass instead of pavement.

He felt emptied in his head, cleared of thoughts that hadn’t even solidified before they’d come boiling out. As he breathed in the cold, damp air, he felt suddenly, strangely free.

A few minutes later the back door whooshed quietly open and closed again, and soft familiar footfalls stopped with a warm, welcome pair of arms encircling him from behind. Dom leaned back into the embrace, the only one he wanted invading his moment of clarity.

Billy’s cheek was warm, but the tip of his nose cooled rapidly, and he pressed it behind Dom’s ear. They didn’t need any words. Dom simply absorbed as much Billy as he could, until they were both shivering too much to stay in their small shield from the world.  



	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little mysteries.

_Sunday, December 24th_

 _9:03am_

“I’m only saying,” Aureen stood at the sink, tidying the kitchen after breakfast, “You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but he was a young man when you were just a boy. And that was in the eighties when… well, when we didn’t know things we know now.”

Dom rolled his eyes, “We’re not stupid, Mum.”

He picked another flower out of the bouquet that had arrived from distant aunt that morning, cutting its stem to fit a somewhat short Christmas vase his mother had dug out of a cupboard. From his seat at the table, he could just see Billy out the living room window, squatting by the motorbike parked on the curb with Matt, who was pointing at various bits of the engine and apparently discussing them at length. His dad had gone somewhere, which was fine by him, given the topic of conversation.

“I know you’re not stupid, I taught you better than that,” his mother said calmly. “You’re sure, then, he’s been tested as well?”

“We both had it done a couple of months ago, we were at the doctor’s anyway,” Dom answered, “Besides that, they had mandatory health checks for the cruise line’s crew, once a year at least. He had it done then.”

“Well, that’s good to know. It’s just worrying, him growing up so fast. I’d call him very lucky,” she said. “You just wouldn’t remember, Dom, back then people were scared. Us in the medical community especially, since we didn’t know what we were dealing with. Your father–”

“My father thinks I must have caught being gay like it’s a disease, so his opinion is irrelevant.”

Aureen put down the dishtowel and turned to face him with a huff, “I was _going_ to say, your father spoke against all the fear-mongering and hatred it caused, _particularly_ in the church. He realized like most science-minded people did that there must be more to it than people assumed, and he was right on that occasion. He can separate proven facts and his own personal beliefs, Dom, you of all people ought to know that. He’s always been an open-minded man.”

“Right, I forgot, you and him and the rest of the Flower Children,” Dom scoffed, “It didn’t touch him back then, did it? It’s all sunshine, daisies and someone else’s problem until it’s your son bringing home a boyfriend.”

“You’ve been spikes out since you got here, I might add,” she put her hands on her hips, “You’ve never been so quick to lip, that was always Matt’s way. It’s no wonder Austin doesn’t know what to make of you. It’s one thing to know you prefer the lads and another to see it, you know. Give him time to settle with the idea, Dommie.”

Dom nearly sniped back again, but held it and dropped his eyes back to his work, picking through the uncut flowers. Aureen sat down beside him at the table, gathering the stems he’d already done and starting to arrange them in the vase. Looking out at Billy again, he was calmed by the sight of him, smiling and casual, comfortable in his skin. That Matt and Billy had immediately taken to each other settled him a bit, and made this entire trip the slightest bit easier.

Matt gestured to the bike, wiping condensation off the seat, and after several shakes of his head and shrugs and smiles, Billy himself straddled it. Looking at all the gauges and fiddling with the shifter by his foot, he looked awkward and silly and completely out of place. Billy looked far more at home on the rail of a ship then he’d ever look on a slick black bike.

“God, but you are twitterpated, aren’t you?”

“I’m _what_?” Dom choked, laughing abruptly at such a ridiculous word, though he’d been caught out with an ogling grin on his face, his cheek propped on his hand as he gazed out the window.

“You are!” his mum teased, tossing a broken bud at him, “You can’t keep your eyes off him for more than five minutes, can you? Mind you, he’s not bad looking. A bit plain is all, but what a voice, and he’s so charming. I don’t blame you, really.”

“Mum!” His cheeks and ears were surely flaming by now, but he could still see Billy, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows even in the misty morning, having switched places with Matt from the bike and now standing with his feet balanced and sure, his face thoroughly attentive.

“Mattie likes him. And he adores you, that much is obvious,” Aureen continued, “Even your father can’t avoid seeing that.”

Dom ducked his gaze back to garden snips, even as warmth flooded him. Two out of three, then. He wondered how much more charming Billy would have to be to melt the ice that was his dad.

“There’s a… Oh, I don’t know, a _sadness_ about him, though, isn’t there?” she wondered quietly. “I suppose that’s why you’re so mysterious about him. When we talked while you were sleeping yesterday... he seemed positively stunned that you’d have him at all, as if he’s done some great wrong. Poor thing. He must have been so scared and lonely.”

“What did you talk about?” Dom asked, unable to contain his curiosity, “Before we met, I mean. What did he tell you?”

“Well, he mentioned his parents’ accident, of course, and going off on his own, living on the streets and working odd jobs. He talked about a guitar shop he worked for, which I guess is why he’s settled in at the place he’s at now, right? Same sort of thing. And, let’s see, he told me about a mate and him getting jobs on that cruise ship, and that was where he’d been up to when you met each other.” She eyed him carefully, “Why? Is there something else I ought to know?”

“It’s not really my place to say,” Dom lifted a shoulder, snipping the last flower stem, “He’s not had it easy, that’s all. I didn’t expect he’d tell you much more than he told me at the beginning.”

“Is there more to tell?” she asked, arching a brow.

Dom met her eyes briefly and nodded, but didn’t elaborate.

“Well, I guess I’m not really surprised at that,” she looked out at the two of them through the window, “It’s no wonder he and Matt get on. Your brother’s got more than enough in his head that he won’t tell his own mother,” she looked worrisome, fluffing the finished bouquet and pushing it to middle of the table. “You just take care of him.”

Dom, chuckled, shaking his head, “He’s more than capable of taking care of himself.”

“Of course he is,” she said, “But I’ll tell you a secret about the wandering sort. They need to be reassured they can have nice things. Especially something as nice as a person who loves as hard as you, Dommie.”

She stood up and collected her purse and coat, “Now, I’ve got a few more things to get at the shops, hopefully they’re not all closed yet.” She ruffled his hair as she passed. “Try not to murder your father before I get back, hmm?”

  
 _7.:20pm_

“What sort of Midnight Mass is at eight in the evening? I intend to have strong words with the dean of the church about this, you know, maybe even draft a letter to Archbishop Wots-His-Name. Clearly they’re all screwed up on the time sweet baby Jesus was born, and that’s just not on.”

Dom snorted at Matt’s diatribe – which could be heard throughout the house – while he knotted his tie and smoothed his suit in front of the bedroom mirror. He was hardly looking forward to sitting on a hard pew for however many hours it would take to get through, but like his mother could be heard patiently explaining, the time was so all the students could be taken home and put to bed at a decent hour.

Austin had reappeared before Aureen had returned from her last minute shopping, and unsurprisingly, he’d made a point to keep to himself while Dom spent an enjoyable several hours kicking around an old football with Matt and Billy in the back garden, using a pair of rhododendrons as goal markers. When the winter drizzle started back up, Matt annihilated Billy and Dom as a team at chess, even with Dom carefully ignoring Matt’s distraction techniques and doing all the strategizing. Austin made a brief trip through the room to the kitchen when Aureen had returned and Dom helped her with dinner, but had nothing to say. In fact, apart from overly polite displays of table manners, they didn’t exchange a word all day.

Twiddling his rings with a last glance in the mirror, he stepped out into the hall. Through the open door to the guest bathroom, Billy was finishing up as well. Having given up on combing his now somewhat unruly hair into its old sleek fashion on the ship, he’d instead roughed it up so it stuck out in all directions. He wore the suit Dom had bought for him in their first few days in New York, a rather versatile black three-piece with just the subtlest hint of pinstriping. Though tonight, Billy had done away with the waistcoat and instead paired a black shirt with an evergreen silk tie.

“Happy Christmas to me,” Dom said, raking his eyes up and down the sight before him. Imagination and memory be damned, Dom did sometimes forget how edible Billy could be when he got dressed up.

“What, this old thing?” Billy grinned, pocketing his hands and striding into the dim hall toward him, looking cocky and decadent from his perfectly shined shoes to his playfully spiky hair. “Not quite MI-6 standard, though.”

“You’ve obviously gone rogue. You’re doing deals with the highest figures in the Russian Mafia now.” Dom gave him a little push into the wall, leaning in to inhale the scrubbed clean scent of him, and whisper darkly against his freshly shaven jaw, “I could just rub off on you right here.”

Billy rounded his brows innocently, keeping his own voice low, “Like you did in the Harrods men’s after they fitted this, if I recall correctly?”

Dom slid his hands around Billy’s waist beneath the jacket and grinned hotly against Billy’s neck, remembering.

“Not always such a good boy, then,” Billy murmured provocatively. “What would Matt say?”

“He’d take every bit of piss out of me,” Dom laughed, then gave a wanting little growl, tugging on the tie. “Christ, you’re sexy in this.”

“Look who’s talking. Make that noise again, I love that noise.” Billy tilted his mouth up to beg a kiss, and Dom obliged both requests.

When a figure darkened the end of the hall in their peripheral vision, Billy retreated back slightly, but Dom hooked a hand round his nape to prevent him getting away, and went back at his lips. Nipping with teeth and delving for a longer taste beneath toothpaste, he got a melty noise from the back of Billy’s throat, and felt triumphant at the way his body rose and fell between his own and the wall.

“I don’t care if he sees,” he breathed against Billy’s mouth and glanced rebelliously to the end of the hall, where the shape of his father retreated without a word. They’d been behaving since they got here, but if his dad needed to see what made him happy, then he might as well get an eyeful. He was seriously considering saying they’d stay here alone after all, and see how open-minded his dad was about the implications behind that.

“Okay,” Billy whispered, sneaking another quick kiss, “Tease. Get me all hot and bothered and then make me sit through church, that’s not very nice at all.”

“Naughty. I’ll get nothing but coal this year.”

“Oi, you two quit groping each other and let’s get this over with,” Matt’s voice called loudly, his own shape appearing at the hallway. “I’m _not_ wearing Dad’s old trousers, Mum, for the last time. God doesn’t mind jeans. He’s very fond of jeans, otherwise old Levi Strauss would never have been so successful. And did you know, Levi is also another name for the great Saint Matthew, after whom I believe Yours Truly was named? It’s true!”

They emerged from the hall at this latest bit of trivia, Billy’s mouth appearing recently beestung and Dom feeling unapologetically smug about it, looking straight at his father. Austin appeared deeply interested his keys.

“Dom, you paid attention in Bible Study. Tell them about old Matthew.”

“He was a tax collector, your Sainthood. Not especially well liked,” Dom grinned. Matt wore an un-ironed button-down, untucked over worn jeans, a beaten pair of Docks and finished with a tweedy sort of blazer and a newsboy cap over tousled hair, and still he managed to be freakishly good looking. “Mum, you will keep your eyes on the young impressionable girls? It’s so easy to fall from grace.”

“Christ, look at you,” Matt drooped theatrically at Billy, “Who knew a pikey could shine up like that?”

“Said pot to kettle,” Billy replied airily, examining his nails.

“Dad, you’ll want to keep your eyes on the alter-boys, you know how corruptible they are at that age,” Matt sniffed.

“Enough, you two, for heaven’s sake. Let’s go.” Aureen herded them all towards the garage.

  
 _11:24pm_

Dom politely broke away from the group with whom his mother was chatting. Mass was over but many people still remained in the pews or otherwise mingling at the entry where there were festive biscuits and muffins and donations of sorts set up by various of the school’s clubs. The church itself was wasn’t huge, though larger and older than the ones he remembered from his own schools in Manchester. Matt could already be seen doing some sort of magic trick with a coin, surrounded by a group of twittering schoolgirls.

Billy, who had excused himself to the loo, was found in a quiet alcove, studying a stained glass window.

“Your brother’s up to no good,” he said, when Dom stepped up next to him.

“I saw that,” Dom grinned, “He needs one of those remote control shock collars. Down, boy.” He mimed pressing a button and making an electric zapping sound in Matt’s direction.

“Is Catholic Mass always that long?”

“No. But it always seems like it is,” Dom pocketed his own hands and stood just close enough for their elbows to brush. “Why? Does your arse hurt?”

“Yes,” Billy laughed quietly, “I’d forgotten. Gran used to drag us to church, especially after Mum and Dad died. Was one of the things we came to blows about before I left. She thought it was good for me, thought it would ‘give me direction’, is what she said. It did that, all right. Any direction but Glasgow.”

Dom kept his eyes on the window, “That was the Scots church?”

“The Kirk, yeah,” Billy grinned, glancing around surreptitiously, “Hostile territory, this is.

“Once, when I first ran away, I went to St. Andrews Cathedral. I had that old notion of sanctuary, you know, from the telly. I thought a church would take in anyone, no matter what you’ve done. Of course, the pastor was very kind, chatted with me for a bit and then went off and brought me something to eat.” Billy chuckled quietly, “He made a mistake though, left me alone when he went to answer the door when the coppers had arrived, nice and quiet-like. I suppose he intended them to scare me a bit, take me home and teach me a lesson.”

“But you already had a record by then,” Dom put in.

“Aye. Knew my way around the police long before that day. I heard them before they got to me. Barely got away out the back. Stupid naïve idea. Taught me who you can trust. Who you can’t, really. I was a lot more careful after that.”

Dom looked around, being sure no one was within hearing range. “The last time I remember confessing, the priest told me flat out, God hated queers, and all sorts of horrible things would happen to me. ‘What would my father think?’ he asked. Scared the shit out me, really. Basically destroyed everything I’d ever been taught to believe in. And that was right before we moved. Dad found a new school, new church, everything. I thought the priest had told my dad, and he uprooted me because of it. Took me a while to figure out it wasn’t like that, it was nothing more than a salary thing. And for some reason it made it that much worse.

“It’s weird, being back,” he reminisced, pocketing his hands and looking back up at the sparkling window, “I haven’t been scared or angry about this stuff for a long time. I’ve hardly even thought about it for years. But I can’t believe in it anymore. The rest of it, I mean.” He scrubbed a hand through the back of his hair, laughing a little, “That priest... I suppose he thought he was saving my soul, and instead he managed to put me off the whole thing.”

Billy met his eyes, “I don’t think it’s wrong to be ourselves, Dommeh, no matter who says so. But as for the rest of it,” he looked back up at the window and shrugged, “You know I never set much store in following the rules. Whatever makes people believe what they believe in, that’s all fine and good, if it gives them purpose. But it’s too big for me. I don’t understand it and I don’t want to, I just want to live my life.”

“Me too,” Dom said. “I just… I just wish Dad would see it like that.”

A pair of arms encircled both of their shoulders, and Matt’s face inserted itself in their midst. “I sense a far too serious discussion between my two favourite homosexuals and the birthday boy,” he nodded up at the depiction of Jesus on the window.

“You are definitely going to hell, Matt,” laughed Dom.

“Absolutely,” Matt beamed, steering them back around to the pews, and the group of students he’d been entertaining, “Fifth or six circle, at least, but hey, I’ve made my peace with that. Ladies, this is my kid brother. Say hi, Dommie, it’s only polite, they think you’re quite adorable, don’t you?”

The girls giggled madly. “You’re Mr. Monaghan’s son as well?” asked one of them.

“I suppose,” Dom glanced around for the Mr. Monaghan in question. “Is he your science teacher?”

“Yeah,” she answered, “He’s funny. He talks about you all the time.”

Dom fish-mouthed at her a bit. “He… he does?”

“Yeah, he says you work with kids in New York,” the girl eyed him up, clearly this clique’s leader, her hair stylishly bobbed and her dress flashier than most of the girls behind her, “He says you support Man U like he does, the slag. Said you wanted to play professional, but you got hurt when you were like, twelve or something.”

“Yeah,” another girl piped up, “And when we did insects a few weeks ago, he said you could name any bug out there, and you’d make up stories about them when you were little.”

“He still does that,” piped Billy, “I heard him tell one to a little girl who was afraid of her garden pond. She calls him the Dragonfly Man. And when there was a spider in the bathtub, he scooped it up sweet as you please in his bare hands, and took the little bugger outside. Mind you, we live on the sixth floor.”

The girls cooed and chattered while Dom scanned the dwindling crowd for his father. He spotted him with his mother, still chatting with friends. The flashy girl looked from him to Billy and back. “You’re flatmates, then?”

“Something like that,” Matt answered for him with a wink. The girl merely grinned and winked back, tossing a few more jibes about football teams with them before leading the group off elsewhere.

“My god, Matt,” Dom laughed, “Corrupting Britain’s promising youth since 1972. If that gets around–”

“Let it get around,” Matt rumbled, ruffling Dom’s hair to absurdity, “None of these kids care, you know. They’d think Dad was cool if he had the cojones to admit it. Beside, I bet if that lot saw you two macking like you were in the hall earlier, they’d all go damp in the knickers. ‘Specially dressed up all sharp like this, I’d plant one on you as well. Here, Bill, give us a kiss,” Matt puckered up at Billy as they made for the entry.

“Too far, man,” Dom laughed, putting himself between them, and shoving Matt off into the end of a pew, and taking Billy by the shoulder. “That’s _mine_.”

“Ooh, possessive, are we?” Matt leered, jogging to catch up and rubbing his hip. “Excellent. Make Dad wonder if you’re the top, that’ll have him squirming.”

Did his father really speak about him to his classes? Even as late as a few weeks ago, when surely he knew Dom would be bringing Billy on this holiday? Did he speak often about memories he remembered to be happy ones, things a father would take pride in?

Dom could not help but keep his arm right where it was around Billy’s shoulders as they reached his parents, matey, but for the way his fingers kept straying into the fluffy curls at Billy’s neckline. Austin smiled and laughed among his friends and fellow teachers, and even when he looked in Dom’s direction, it did not waver.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Check, mate or draw.

_Monday, December 25th, Christmas Day_

Dom wove in and out of dreams, the images in his head pleasant and random as he clung to them and fought the light blooming before his eyelids. Eventually though, warmth trickled up along his limbs, crawled down his spine, pooling, becoming solid and hot and immensely pleasurable, undulating with a slow, steady, unrelenting rhythm. He took a deep breath and groaned heavily.

A low laugh erupted by his jaw, lips pressing over his own as the heavy rolling ecstasy continued without missing a beat. “Shh, Dommeh. You’ve got to be so quiet now.”

All at once, Dom slammed into full consciousness, acutely aware of Billy’s hand tight on his prick, of the morning sunshine streaming through the window, glinting fire in Billy’s hair, burnishing his skin, the lazy motion of his wrist quickening to match Dom’s now thundering heartbeat. Dom gasped as Billy’s mouth left his and laid a stinging nip on his chin, a hot stripe of his tongue down to his chest, and with an utterly wicked last glance, he disappeared beneath the sheets. A moment or two later, Dom flung one hand up to grip the headboard and crammed the other in his mouth to stifle half-formed pleas and curses and shouts from echoing off the walls.

“I can’t believe you did that,” he panted when Billy emerged from the under the covers, licking his lips and looking tremendously satisfied with himself, to flop down beside him. “In my parents’ house!”

“Oh, don’t pretend you haven’t done it before. With them in the next room over.”

“Have you?”

“No. But there’s a first time for everything.”

Dom laughed and sprawled over the mattress. It certainly wasn’t the first time Billy had woke him up right on the verge of orgasm, but he had to admit the threat of being caught had ratcheted the intensity up like crazy. “Felt like I was fourteen again.”

“Merry Christmas,” Billy draped himself half over Dom lazily. “Didn’t even make a mess.” His own erection was a heavy pulse against Dom’s hip through boxers, but Billy merely settled in his normal place and Dom melted into a sated doze with him.

It seemed only a second later that a sudden loud pounding at the door of their room had him jumping a mile, startled awake for the second time and yanking the blankets up to his chin. Billy was similarly wild-eyed, with a hand across Dom’s torso, as if to fling him out of harm’s way.

“Wakey wakey, lovebugs!”

The bedroom door flew open to the muffled scolding of Dom’s mother somewhere deeper in the house, Matt yelling back down the hall in answer, “What? I _did_ knock!”

He turned back, leaning casually against the doorjamb with a knowing grin. “Well, well, well, I see the spirit of giving has already begun. You know you could spend all day in here, and Mum and Dad wouldn’t dare come near this door.”

Dom relaxed back into the pillows, though he could feel his cheeks and ears burning, “And yet, here _you_ are.”

“Mum’s making waffles,” Matt informed them, leaning a bit back out in the hall and raising his voice fiendishly so his words would be heard throughout the house, “You might have to shower together to get some before they’re all gone.”

Billy leaned back into the crook of Dom’s arm, “You know, that might not be a bad idea. We can’t miss out on waffles.”

“Right, up and up, Happy Gay Christmas to all,” Matt found a pair jeans on the floor and flung them at them, and then slammed the door behind himself.

Billy giggled, rolling atop Dom to prop on his elbows and gaze happily at him. “Your brother’s riot, trying to out us to the whole neighborhood. Maybe I didn’t need to keep you quiet after all.”

“I’m sure he’s taken out an ad in the local paper by now,” Dom grumbled sleepily, pushing his hands up into the warmth beneath the back of Billy’s t-shirt, his thoughts stuck and lingering on a little hitch in their afterglow conversation. “When was your first time, Bills?”

The glow on Billy’s face flickered for a fraction of a second before he dipped his head, dropping tiny, mute kisses just to the side of Dom’s nose. “In the detention.”

He pulled back just enough to run his fingers along Dom’s parted lips, though he wouldn’t meet Dom’s eyes. He exhaled and pillowed his head on Dom’s shoulder, speaking quietly. “Not like you’d think. I held my own in there. You had to, or you hooked up with someone who could. And I was little, you know, a short kid. The type the bigger ones singled out from the off.”

Dom brushed his hand through Billy’s scalp, “And you showed them otherwise, I bet.”

“Aye,” Billy answered, though there wasn’t any pride behind it. “I had a few of the lads that got beat on the most behind me within a week or two, had myself a proper little gang. One of them was my first.” He paused, his eyebrows coming together. “I don’t remember his name. I… I hurt him, the first time. Scared me.” He propped himself up again, “I didn’t ever bottom myself until much later.”

“It hurts everyone the first time,” Dom commented.

“It didn’t for me,” Billy pretended to be intrigued by the pattern of freckles along Dom’s neck and shoulder, his little mouth curling in his silence.

Dom swatted his arse playfully, “Tell me then, you cunt. You don’t get to drop a hint like that and then go all covert.”

“All right, all right!” Billy laughed, “It was sometime after Gavin died. When I first came to London, but before I met Bean. I was busking outside a café in Piccadilly for a couple of days. This bloke was there, both days. Sat outside drinking espressos, writing on a notepad and watching me. All day.”

Dom gave a little snort, “That’s creepy.”

“It wasn’t, though. I liked it,” Billy gave a half-bashful grin, “I liked him watching me sing.”

Dom smiled, remembering how Billy liked having him in his audience. He arched a sly brow, “He was good looking.”

Billy blushed, “He was very good looking. Movie star good looking. Older guy, maybe forty or so, back then. American ex-pat, said he was a writer. And he had that… that cowboy sort of rugged thing going on. Anyway, he took me back to his flat and cooked for me and wooed me into bed and…” Billy paused and shifted his weight on Dom, arousal reawakening after their little nap, “…showed me a few things I’d never known before. I stayed with him for a few days.”

Dom grinned, imagining Billy romanced by some faceless stranger in the same ways he’d swept Dom off his feet. Sliding his hands down to Billy arse under the waistband of his boxers, he waggled his brows. “I should find this guy and thank him.”

“I don’t remember his name either,” Billy pressed back in close to trace the freckles with his mouth, his hips starting up a slow, barely there rhythm against Dom’s.

“Why didn’t you stay with him?” Dom asked. “Longer, I mean.”

Abruptly, Billy rolled off him and swung his legs over the side of the bed, running a hand through his hair.

“Hey, I’m s–“

Billy put a hand back to still him. “It’s okay, Dommeh,” he interrupted, patting Dom’s arm before standing up and picking through their luggage for a new pair of shorts. “Your mum made waffles.” And he left the room, quietly shutting the door.

Dom heard the shower start shortly after and sighed grumpily, knowing he’d once again pushed Billy to the brink of something uncomfortable without meaning to.

By the time Billy was at the sink shaving and Dom had taken a quick turn in the shower, they fell back into themselves, jostling in front of the mirror and even fencing with their toothbrushes before dressing and finally presenting themselves for breakfast.

Matt groused, “Decided to join everyone else for the holidays, then? Are you sure we’re not interrupting?”

“Enough, Mattie,” Aureen shushed, getting up to pour more batter into the waffle iron. They lingered over the food, taking second helpings and eating slowly just to irritate Matt, who was sorting the presents under the tree into piles for each person. “Hurry up!”

Finally, they all sat down around the living room and Matt distributed the gifts.

“Go on, go first,” Austin ruffled his eldest’s hair as he took his seat. Matt tore into his gifts with glee. His favorite was a set of leather biking gloves from his father, who said little but obviously approved of the motorbike more than he let on.

His parents took their turns, their gifts small and sentimental. Dom had given his mother a pair of earrings and his father a tie, which felt predictable and stupid, though he really had no idea what else to give someone he’d not spoken to for years. Matt had given his parents bottles of wine from the Austrian vineyard where he’d worked, which somehow seemed more personable.

Then it was Billy’s turn. He had only one present beside him, and that he eyed nervously.

“That one is yours, Billy, from Austin and I.” Aureen pressed it on him. Dom suspected everyone in the room knew that his dad had no real hand in the Christmas shopping, so really Billy’s present from his mother. Dom had never managed to give her any hints.

“You didn’t have to…” he started, but she wouldn’t have it. “Don’t go saying that now, it’s Christmas, everyone gets something. Go on.” She wrung her hands a bit nervously. “I never know what to get new company, you know, they feel like such typical things.”

Billy unwrapped the package, lifting the lid from the box and sheets of tissue. Inside was a woolen scarf of red, green and a touch of blue, soft and thick as it cascaded over his lap.

“It’s from a shop up in Camden, they ship in a lot of things from up north there,” she babbled, “They told me those are your colours, I’m sorry I had to ask.”

Billy draped it around his neck and smiled at her, “It’s lovely, thank you.”

“Well, it’s cold in New York, and I just thought…”

“Mum, shut up,” Matt rolled his eyes.

“There’s, erm… another.” She pointed inside the box, where another small narrow box was wrapped in the same paper. As Billy opened it, Dom leaned over to see that it was a beautiful pewter kilt pin, shaped like a dagger with a neat Celtic knot at the hilt.

“This is too much,” Billy said, shaking his head. “And I… I don’t know what to do with it.”

“I do,” Dom grinned fiendishly.

“No, Dom,” Billy warned, but Dom waved him off. “I’m getting you into a kilt one of these days, Bills. Deal with it.”

“You can wear one to the wedding,” Matt quipped.

“My turn,” Dom said, pretending to select one of his own gifts.

“But didn’t Dom get you a present?” Matt asked loudly, as Dom knew he would, “I never figured him to be a diamonds sort of guy, but–“

“Shush, Matthew, don’t be such a pain in the arse,” Aureen glowered mockingly at her older son.

Meanwhile, Billy glowered at Dom, who had pulled a small, unwrapped but innocuous cardboard box from where he’d stashed it under the sofa cushions when Billy wasn’t looking.

“We agreed, no presents,” Billy reminded him sternly.

“We did,” Dom nodded, “This isn’t a present, see? No wrapping paper. It’s a practical thing, something you needed.” He pushed the box into Billy’s hands. “It cost all of three dollars, Bills, just open it.”

Billy looked doubtfully at him but slowly opened the lid to the box. His eyes darted back up to Dom’s before pulling out the contents, a set of postcards, each with a photo of different world landmark.

“You don’t like email, so I figured you needed something to write to people on,” Dom sat back, smiling. “I, erm, I used one up though, so it’s not quite one hundred count.”

Billy flipped through the set, finding the card that showed a picture of Mount Ruapahu in New Zealand, on which Dom had drawn a heart with a little boat at the center.

Billy grinned down at the postcard and pulled him into a hug for appearances sake, but his real gratitude was something that passed between them without being spoken, in the way Billy’s hands continued to shuffle through the cards, pausing on certain pictures and places.

Dom set to opening his own gifts. Matt had given him an enormous extravagantly wrapped box of condoms, which was good for a laugh, though the bottles of wine made up for it. His mother gave him a scarf similar to Billy’s, though in stripes navy blue and grey, as well as shirts and other usuals she thought he didn’t have enough of.

Presents done with, Aureen began collecting the wads of wrapping paper littering the floor. Billy was admiring Matt’s new gloves while Austin got up and went to the dining room, returning a minute later with the ship in a bottle that had sat in the curio. He held it out to Dom with little ceremony.

Dom looked blankly at the ship and at his dad, taking it a little warily.

Austin shrugged, gesturing to the bottle again, “It’s yours, anyway, take it home with you.”

Dom held it awkwardly, the little _Cutty Sark_ sailing on its epoxy waves with three perfect upright masts of sails, inside a cider jug. He was acutely aware that everyone had paused to watch and felt color rise to his face. All he could think was that they’d have to ship it back home and what a hassle that would be. He wanted to hand it back and defiantly say he didn’t want it, but what fell out of his mouth was a muttered, “Thank you.”

Austin nodded and then stood there looking bewildered before he reached for the packet of fags in his breast pocket and left the room, down the hall to the garage.

“Well, that’s something,” Aureen huffed, stuffing more paper into the bin.

The rest of the holiday progressed quietly. Dom’s mum got started cooking the elaborate Christmas dinner she had planned. Billy volunteered to polish the good silverware, to much ribbing from Matt. He and Dom set up the chessboard again, ready for another round of strategic and psychological warfare.

On their sixth game, they’d both collected an equal number of each other's pieces from the board. Dom moved his bishop. “Check.”

“That’s not Check.”

“Is so Check, look, man.”

Matt looked, and looked some more. His fingers hovered over his remaining rook and pawn and even his king, before withdrawing them and looking some more, all random facts and distractions silenced.

“Mate in two moves,” Austin’s voice came from the doorway, where he’d been silently watching for some time, “Well done, Dom.”

“Gah,” Matt growled irritably, moving his rook the only way he could, and then spared Dom his last move by knocking his own king flat in defeat.

Dom swept up the pieces smugly, exchanging a bright smile with Billy while Matt stalked out to the living room and sulkily flipped on the telly. His dad inclined his head from the doorway, some sort of acknowledgement before he turned to join Matt for the evening news.

Settling the pieces into their felt case, Dom held the white marble bishop for a moment. He had a weird sense of déjà vu, something to do with chess pieces, white marble and black obsidian just like these, and a flash of a third, jade army. He grasped for what it meant, but the odd thought flitted away as if it had never been.

He spent the remainder of the afternoon helping his mother prepare salads and sauces and puddings. As the sun went down and the tree sparkled with lights, they steadily consumed all the day’s work until empty bowls and desiccated plates covered the table.

“I won’t have to eat again for a year, Mum,” Matt groaned, pushing back from the table before everyone else, though he’d inhaled several helpings of just about everything.

“Oh good, then you can manage the dishes,” Aureen said primly, “Seeing as you didn’t help make the supper.”

“Billy didn’t help either,” Matt fired back.

“Ah, see here?” Billy winked across at him, holding up a sparkling salad fork that hadn’t been used, tilting it to capture the light, “See how it shines? Watch and learn, lad. Choose your battles, and you don’t get stuck with the dirty work.”

“But I’m your own blood, Mum, your firstborn!” Matt grumbled, grabbing for a wine glass, “And I brought the alcohol!”

“Mmm, and somehow I like it better knowing you worked for it,” Aureen sat back with her glass and took a sip. “Hop to. The dishes aren’t going to wash themselves.”

“We could always write him out of the will,” Austin put in.

“Geez, the welcome we get, eh? Dom? Back me up here,” Matt rounded on him.

“You’re on your own, man,” he picked up a dish scraped nearly clean, “Here you are. Make sure you use the scrubby thing, the potatoes were pretty starchy.”

Everyone laughed. Austin as well, his booming laugh louder than all others. He grinned around, sated and happy, his eyes lingering on Dom and for a few moments seemed to bypass whatever disagreements they had.

“Well, that’s me done in. Excellent dinner.” He stood up and pressed a kiss to his wife’s cheek, with a quiet, “Happy Christmas,” and then left, down the hallway to the garage for his after supper cigarette.

Dom dawdled over the last of his pudding. Matt continued to moan about the state of the dishes until Aureen got up to be sure he was washing up properly. He could feel their eyes on him, felt Billy’s hand rub his knee beneath the table briefly, as if to soften the expectation of reconciliation.

Dom’s mind was a tidal wave of conflict, unsure what to think. _Well done, Dom._ It repeated in his head like a recording, along with the words of the schoolgirls from yesterday, ringing with some old fatherly pride Dom remembered from childhood, and yet there was also the disparaging ache of how Austin had spoken to Billy so condescendingly and otherwise not at all, how he felt the need to take Dom aside and remind him not to be who he was in church. The ship in the bottle sat in the guest room along with wine and other gifts that would not fit in their luggage and would have to be mailed back to New York – the ship Austin had succeeded in building where Dom had failed.

He followed the hallway back out to the garage, still without a fucking clue what needed to be said to put things right.

Austin leaned against the back of the car as before, the ember of his smoke glowing in the dark. Dom stopped by the tool shelf and looked out at the neighborhood. Cars lined the street, Christmas lights reflecting in their paint. The air was cold and wet, wisps of fog floating amongst ornamental shrubs and flowerbeds.

“I would have got more than a tie,” he spoke the first words that came to him, and even then he wanted to bite them back.

Austin shrugged and tapped his ash, “Can never have enough ties.”

They studied each other, Dom again taking in the oddness of how old his dad looked, the streaks of grey in his hair and beard, the little gut he’d gained, the casual set of his hands, very like Dom’s own, not gnarled or spotted at all, but still somehow older.

His father looked steadily back, as if Dom’s vicious demand from the first night still rang off the walls. Dom wondered what it was he saw, and if he felt the same removed awkwardness. He looked away, out to the street, embarrassed without knowing why.

“You had a mate when you were a boy,” His father suddenly asked, “Cullin. Do you remember?”

“Of course I remember,” Dom answered, more snappishly then he meant to. He looked back and gave his father a shrug to soften it.

Austin nodded, taking another pull off the cigarette. “He was a bright kid. I remember him debating with teachers until they didn’t know who was on the right end of things. Bit of a smart-arse.”

“You didn’t like him.”

“I didn’t dislike him,” Austin answered promptly. “But I worried about his influence on you.”

“He didn’t make me gay, if that’s the influence you were worried about,” Dom looked up brazenly, clenching his jaw. When he dad merely gazed back, neither confirming nor denying the statement, he looked away, breathing slowly to hold his anger in check. He didn’t want to give his father the satisfaction of getting a rise out of him this time.

Austin spoke with the indifferent patience of a teacher. “You were very close.”

Dom nodded slowly. He’d never really defined what Cullin had been to him in the course of knowing each other. Even now, he didn’t think of him the way he thought of Billy, or of Sean. Their relationship had been a sort of intense and necessary connection, nothing more or less, and when it had been broken, something in him that was difficult to define had been lost.

An owl called in the distance somewhere in the open land to the southwest. The wind rustled the bare trees, clicking branches together in the quiet. Christmas music could be heard from inside a neighboring home. Dom turned to call it a stalemate and leave. He didn’t want to keep bickering over matters that would never be settled between them.

Austin crushed out his smoke and crossed his arms, shaking his head. “I made mistakes with you boys. I didn’t teach you the right things.”

Dom sighed irritably, turning back. “You taught me plenty.”

“No, I didn’t make myself clear, I didn’t teach you–”

“I have to disagree, Mr. Monaghan.”

Dom turned back to the drive to see Billy slowly rounding the garage wall from the front entry, one hand tucked in his pocket and the other holding a beer.

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, Dommeh. Just came out for some air.” His voice was quiet and apologetic to Dom, then rose to one of politic assurance to his father. “But I can’t let you go on thinking you’ve not raised a fine son, sir.”

Austin surveyed Billy with doubt in his eyes and words held on his tongue.

“My gran once took me aside when I was a lad, ‘bout thirteen or so,” he turned a paint can on the shelf as if reading the contents, with a short airy huff of laughter, “She told me: When I court a girl, I must be polite to her father, call him ‘sir’, declare my intentions and seek his blessing.”

Billy looked to Austin pointedly, waiting for some reaction for several moments. He didn’t get one.

“My parents tried to teach me these things you mention,” Billy continued, his voice low and fond.

“Bills,” Dom broke in, wanting to intervene, to keep Billy’s family matters separate.

“No, Dom,” Billy silenced him and continued on, “They did nothing but work twelve hours a day to keep us up, come home and feed and clothe us, make us happy, though we’d no money for extras.

“And I _resented_ them. Dad, Mum, Gran, and anyone else who brought us to be what we were, poor factory trash from Cranhill. I hated them for it. I picked fights and skived off school for attention. I thought I was better than all of it. I was a smart arse, and when I needed them most, they were gone, and I was far too pissed off at the world to listen anymore. So I ran and I fought and I let other people pick me up when I was down, until I outstayed my welcome, and then I ran again, and again. I’m a self-centered coward, I don’t deny that. I’ve never done anything if it didn’t serve my best interests.

“At least, not until your lad walked onto my boat,” Billy continued, reaching to brush a bit of lint from Dom’s sleeve. “Taught me a thing or two.

“Dominic knows what’s right better than most,” Billy went on. “He’s all the things most people ought to be but aren’t, just because they can’t be arsed. He spends day and night worrying over kids that aren’t his, just because someone taught him to be selfless and forgiving, to give himself to those who may not even want to listen to what he has to teach them.

“I’m thirty-eight years old, and I didn’t learn any of those things until he showed them to me. And he keeps on with it too, never mind I don’t deserve it. He makes me want to be worth the effort,” Billy looked between the both of them, then settled back on Austin, his eyes soft, but his expression serious, “So, I’d say your son is more a man than I will ever be. I’d say you taught him well.”

“As for my gran’s advice, somehow I don’t think it would work out the way the old bird thought, so I’ll just make myself clear. I’m not running anymore. And all due respect, sir, I don’t need your blessing on that. Your approval wouldn’t change a thing on my end. Although for Dom’s sake, it might be nice.”

And with a last soft look at Dom, he turned and walked out to the street, standing on the curb by the motorbike, tilting the bottle up to his lips.

“He thinks very highly of you,” his dad said after awhile, his voice cradling a note of surprise.

“He doesn’t give himself any credit,” Dom returned as he stared after Billy’s shape in the dark silhouetted by colored lights. He was stunned at how much Billy attributed to him, when he had accomplished so much of it on his own. “He’s the best person I’ve ever known.”

Why he was telling his father of all people this, Dom could not comprehend, but Austin said nothing for or against it. He looked up, the skies above Hounslow silent for once as the airport was closed for the holiday. Billy had braved not one, but two long flights for him, had stayed with him no matter how many times Dom had screwed up in the strange span of this affair, four months, twelve days, and counting. Billy had stuck it out, and even spoke of him like a poet to the one person Dom could not prove himself to. Perhaps Billy wasn’t crap with words after all.

“I love him,” Dom said simply, “You don’t have to understand. All you have to do is let us be.”

He left his father there in the garage and made his way out to the sidewalk. Billy passed the beer to him and Dom finished off the bottle. A group emerged from a nearby house, the doorway bright as they exchanged goodbyes with their hosts and herded three boys, all clutching favorite gifts towards a minivan. Billy watched, fingering the fringe on his new scarf. “Your mum spent too much on this.”

“Maybe,” Dom replied, “It’s not like I could stop her doing it, though.”

“Now I know where you get it from,” Billy gave half a smile that faded just as quickly. “I’m sorry, Dom.”

“For what?”

“Just…” Billy sighed, wrapping his arms around himself in the chill. “I’m not used to this. Family.”

Dom nodded. Billy had endured the last few days gracefully, had done his damnedest not to bend under pressure, but at some point it had to get overwhelming. His speech to Austin had been given with careful control, but Dom had sensed the pent-up exasperation beneath the words.

“You asked me, this morning, why I didn’t stay with the writer,” Billy’s eyebrows furrowed, his voice dropping as if to himself, “What was his name?” After a moment he shook his head, giving up, “I’m good at forgetting things I don’t want to remember.”

Dom chanced the question again. “Why didn’t you stay?”

Billy watched the minivan pull away until its taillights turned off the street. “Because I felt something that scared the shite of me, and I didn’t want to face it back then. I didn’t want to face it the second time it came round either, but you didn’t really give me a choice.” He met Dom’s eyes, “You caught me when I had nowhere to run.”

Dom took a last step closer, gathering him into an embrace. Billy didn’t resist, looking back with that quiet intensity, unnerving and electric and so incredibly beautiful that Dom couldn’t find words. Here was a man who believed so fiercely that he had a choice in everything he did, revealing that perhaps fate had a little play in things after all. He could only take that face in his hands, press a soft kiss to his forehead before resting his own against it and breathing the same cold, hanging air. To say _I love you_ after everything Billy had said and done seemed meaningless. It wasn’t big enough. Nothing was.

“I want to go to Scotland, Dom.”

Dom pulled back on a gasp, staring back at him in complete disbelief.

Billy drew a worn piece of paper from his back pocket, unfolding it so Dom could see. It was Maggie’s letter, its edges dingy from being opened and creased time and time again. It had sat under Billy’s picture frame in their flat since it had arrived weeks ago, and unbeknownst to Dom, Billy had brought it with him, like a talisman he simply couldn’t leave behind.

“You said – I doubt you remember it, but – that morning you made Not-Cinnamon buns, you said maybe we could go. I thought, day after Boxing Day, the trains will be packed, but I’ve got enough saved for a couple of tickets–”

Dom kissed him right out there on the street, not caring whether his father or anyone else could see. Never in a million years had he expected this, and when he drew back, Billy blinked at him with the softest quirk to his lips, his thumb wiping a little wet trail from Dom’s cheek.

“What’s this, my Dom?” he whispered soothingly, “You’re not the crying sort.”

“No… no,” Dom sniffled through a shaky laugh. “Just…. Are you sure?”

“No. M’not sure.” Billy’s face reflected his fears, even as his hands smoothed up and down Dom’s back. “I need you to make me sure.”

Dom traced the lines of doubt on Billy’s face. “I think it’s time you went home, then.”

Billy locked his arms around him and held tightly, “You’re my home.”

“Then I’ve an inkling to head north.”


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Restorations.

_Monday, December 26th, Boxing Day_

Aureen sat at the head of the table, again reading over the creased, dog-eared letter in her hands. “So, this is the first you’ve heard from your sister in twenty years.” She lay the paper down again and took off her reading glasses, surveying Billy with a motherly look. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you write her sooner? What made you feel you couldn’t go back?”

Billy kept his eyes on his hands, folded on the table to keep from fidgeting under her scrutiny. Faced with telling Aureen exactly why they suddenly intended to leave tomorrow (having left out some pertinent bits out of the story he was certain she wouldn’t think highly of) left him looking quite the opposite of the confident gentleman he’d been projecting since they’d arrived. Now he looked young and ashamed.

“He meant to. He meant to go out and make something of himself like everyone does,” Dom answered in his place, glancing momentarily back where his father stood listening in the doorway, “He promised Maggie he’d come back and take care of her, it just… didn’t work out that way.”

“Pssh,” Aureen clucked her tongue, pushing the letter back to him, “By the look of it she’s gone out and made her own way. That stationary is from a seaside inn, and that’s no factory job, whatever she does. She could be a gourmet chef, or a musician, like you. She could even own the place, come to that. Did you expect her to just sit tight and wait?”

Billy gave a miserable sigh. He pulled the letter close, glancing over it before folding it up and simply holding it. Dom reached over to twine their fingers.

“Oh, now don’t look so stung, I don’t mean to upset you,” Aureen fretted, patting his arm. “But family’s family, you know, blood is thicker than water. We can only hope anyway.” She looked pointedly at her husband.

“People internalize their fears, Mum,” Dom said, “Left along the same course, they just get bigger, until all he could do was shove it away and not look at it at all to get through each day. For all he knew, she wanted nothing to do with him, same as when he left.”

She glanced at Dom skeptically, “And you somehow made him stop and look?”

Dom rubbed his thumb over the scar on Billy’s knuckle, “He already knew how to do that. He just needed someone else to look at it with him and tell him that the monsters under the bed aren’t so scary.”

“Those bastards never stop being scary, mate,” Matt said, clapping Billy on the shoulder as he passed through to the kitchen, pulling the orange juice from the fridge and taking a gulp straight from the carton. “They’re always munching at your toes in the dark.”

Under the joke, there was understanding in Matt’s words, and Billy managed a small smile.

“A glass, Mattie, please, use a glass,” Aureen sighed. “Well, I can’t say I understand. I don’t see what sort of sibling argument could go so badly wrong that you couldn’t go back, but I’m sure there’s more to it than you’re willing to tell me. And you, Dominic, you ought to think about following your own advice on occasion,” She drilled him with a stern look, which softened immediately. “You’re sure you’ve got to go tomorrow? Both of you?”

“I haven’t been this near to Scotland in five or six years at least,” Billy spoke for the first time since explaining the whole story, “And that time I couldn’t even make myself go ashore. I won’t go if I don’t do it now. And I can’t do it without Dom.” He looked up at her, a furtive plea in his expression, “I don’t know how.”

“Oh, you sweetheart,” She rounded the table and swept Billy into a hug, “I didn’t mean to say… Of course Dom will go with you.”

Billy tentatively returned it, something in his eyes over her shoulder lost and distant before they closed to the embrace.

“When will you leave?” she asked, releasing him.

“Early,” Dom answered. “We’ll have to, if there’s any chance of catching a train.”

“I suppose so. You ought to see about booking something online if you can. You can use your father’s computer. I just hoped to have you a bit longer, that’s all.” She gave Billy a nod, and that seemed to seal it. “Well, what shall we do if this is the last evening I’ve all my boys together, hmm?”

“Pub crawl!” yelled Matt, lifting his juice glass.

“Oh really, Mattie,” Aureen admonished.

“Seriously!” Mattie gestured widely, “Come on, Mum, when was the last time you and Dad went out and had a few drinks just because you could? No one says you’ve got to stop enjoying the pubs once you get hitched and hit fifty. Eh?”

*

The pub was crowded and gleeful, celebration rolling in the air. A rugby game that had ended that afternoon was being analyzed on the big screen in the corner behind the bar, the playback being enthusiastically discussed. Wait staff squeezed through bodies and tables with trays laden with drinks and food.

They grabbed a table as soon as one was vacated, and Matt very quickly had one of the waitresses on hand to order.

“Let’s see, something really fruity for these two. Like, really, pull out the blender and the peach Schnapps and the maraschino cherries–“

“We’ll have a couple of Newcastles, love,” Dom told the waitress loudly, shoving Matt momentarily off his chair.

“Newcastles, right,” the girl smiled, “Anything else?”

“A Guinness for the old man and a martini for my lovely mum, because she’s just that classy,” Matt retaliated by digging a finger into Dom’s ribs, making him squirm nearly into Billy’s lap to get away.

“And for you?”

“Gin and tonic and your phone number,” Matt let out the full-scale grin.

The girl merely looked over her notepad. “Two Newcastles, Guinness, martini, gin and tonic…” she leaned deliberately over toward Matt, tipping him a wink, “And I’ll think about the phone number.”

The drinks arrived in good time despite the crowds, and Matt’s gin and tonic came out with a cherry decorating the edge of the glass, which got roundly applauded.

Dom watched Billy take in the place. Before they’d left the house, he had pinched the waistcoat out of that lovely suit and thrown it on, managing to dress up a plain long sleeved t-shirt and jeans in a way that suited him perfectly. On top of this, he had a new shine to him, a hopefulness that hadn’t been there for a very long time.

The sound of microphone feedback broke through the hubbub of the crowd, and a voice carried through, “Hello, test, test. Bloody thing, can you all hear me?”

“What the hell is this?” Matt asked as the feedback wound down.

“Right, everyone, Happy Christmas, Happy Fifty Percent Off Shopping day, I hope you’ve all kissed your mother, and all that shite.” A wave of lively yells rippled through the crowd, “And if you’ve spent Boxing Day here before than you know that it’s the third annual Bell and Crown Karaoke Contest!”

There was a collective cheering and groaning, and a scooting of chairs. Many people took this as time to leave, but many more converged on the stage. Billy became very interested in his beermat, trying hard not to smile (and failing) while all eyes around the table landed on him.

Matt slapped the table. “Twenty quid says I win.”

“Against who?” Billy asked, all innocence.

“You and every other twat in this pub.”

Dom choked on a swallow and coughed, “Matt, you do not know what you’re getting into.” Matt was actually a fair singer, on the one hand, but on the other…

“Nooo,” Billy shook his head, grinning. “I’m afraid I left my karaoke days far behind.”

“What, are you out of practice? “ Matt taunted, “Need a warm up, Celine Dion, eh? Or does Dommie get so hot under the collar when you crack out the _Titanic_ theme that he’ll make a scene?”

Billy dug a thumbnail between the layers of the beermat and glanced at Dom with all kinds of mischief in his eyes.

“Dom, drop fifty on this, your man against me. You know I can sing, little bro.” Matt clapped him on the back.

Dom sat back in his chair and held his hands up, “I don’t really think I should take sides.”

“Fifty,” Aureen pulled the note out of her purse. Billy looked at her as if this was betrayal, “Oh, come on. I’d love to hear you sing again.”

“A hundred, if I get to choose the song,” Matt looked wicked.

“You haven’t got a hundred,” Billy arched a wry brow at him. “Fifty, and I choose my own song.”

“Oh, it’s on,” said Matt.

“Well, go on, get up there, so we don’t have to listen to a bunch of bloody drunks before you,” Aureen shooed. Austin merely laughed at all this jovially and drank his Guinness.

Most of the songs were mediocre, groups of young women doing giggly top forty songs, a few guys clowning around and performing downright horribly. One rather shy looking girl got a loud round of applause for quite a good rendition of a Kelly Clarkson song, but by this time, the conversation at the table had progressed while Matt and Billy waited in the line for their turns at the stage.

“But you haven’t called the number on that letter of his?” Dom’s mum asked incredulously over a particularly out of tune singer.

Dom shook his head.

“But then how can you possibly be sure she’s going to be there? You might get all the way up there and find no one home, and then what?”

“I don’t know,” Dom smiled, “But I know Billy, and I know that he’s all or nothing. He doesn’t want this to happen over the phone. Shite, it was hard enough to get him to write that letter and send it. If we go up there and we don’t find her, he’s still made some kind of progress. Do you see that?”

Aureen sat back and finished her martini, as the out of tune singer left the stage to not much applause. “Fine, but I don’t see why you couldn’t call. You wouldn’t even have to say anything to him about it, just ask for her, see if she’s there.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Dom shook his head. “I got in more than enough trouble looking for her address without asking him, I’m not about to–“

The first strong, ringing note of the next singer shut him right up.

 _At last  
My love has come along  
My lonely days are over  
And life is like a song_

The crowd went wild, and Dom turned in his chair, finding Billy lit up with multicoloured lights as he grinned coyly at his shoes at the cheering, pulling the microphone from the stand and setting it out of his way.

 _Oh yeah, at last  
The skies above are blue  
My heart was wrapped up in clovers  
The night I looked at you_

Billy’s eyes locked so very purposefully with Dom’s that he felt like there was a spotlight burning through him as well, though no one else seemed to notice. His cheeks hurt from smiling so hard and his heart pounded like it had so many months ago, in a lounge with a drink in his hand, listening to that same voice singing to him.

 _I found a dream that I could speak to  
A dream that I can call my own  
I found a thrill to rest my cheek to  
A thrill that I have never known_

Billy’s tenor played with the notes, softly on some lines and rising to a belt out others. His pitch was spot on, vibrato just enough, and he had all eyes on him, right up to and including the waitresses, the barman and the karaoke mixer. Wherever Billy’s confidence had gone earlier in the day, it was back with a vengeance. He owned the stage.

 _Oh when you smile, you smile  
Oh, and then the spell was cast  
And here we are in heaven  
For you are mine  
At last_

The applause as the music wound down was raucous, and Billy left the stage to be engulfed by people, shaking his hand and their heads.

Matt suddenly flopped down at the table and pouted at his empty glass.

“What are you doing back, Mattie? We haven’t seen you take your turn,” Aureen prodded.

“I concede,” Matt grumbled. “Look at him! He’s had like twenty numbers pushed at him and he’s turning them down!”

Billy could be seen on the edge of the crowd speaking to a group of women, smiling and shrugging. Eventually he looked sweetly apologetic and pointed toward Dom at the table. Dom smugly turned back and nursed his beer, until eventually a pair of hands massaged his shoulders from behind.

“Like that?” Billy murmured in his ear before he dropped into his seat.

“Was it for me?” Dom grinned.

“Always. Only.” Billy squeezed the back of his neck affectionately. “Oi, Matt, you owe me some money.”

“Contest isn’t over yet,” Matt grumbled pointedly, as another song cued up. “Some magic fairy might come and knock your throne right over.”

“Maybe so. My beer is empty,” Billy tipped his bottle over mournfully, then pulled out a handful of slips of paper from his pocket, shaking his head ruefully. “And I’m afraid I can’t have all these lovely ladies’ numbers just get scattered on the floor for any pervert to find. It would be much more gentlemanly of me, seeing as I’m spoken for, to just…” He plucked the first number off the stack and tore it into little pieces.

Matt’s eyes widened, and he promptly scooted off to try and hail the bartender.

Aureen laughed and laughed, pink faced and fanning herself, “Oh, this is fun. I’m glad we did this, all my leading men together. My god, Billy Boyd, you are a wonder, and they simply loved you. Why don’t you go professional?”

Billy shrugged, and casually threw his arm around Dom’s shoulder, “Ah, me, I like a quiet life.”

“Well, it’s not every day Matthew meets his match,” Austin said, extending a hand. “That was really very good, by the way.”

“Thank you, sir,” Billy returned, shaking the hand and grinning.

Austin smiled briefly back, and then plucked the packet of smokes from his breast pocket and his coat from the back of the chair, and headed outside to the pub’s patio.

Another singer took the stage, singing something sappy and warbly. Aureen seemed to enjoy it though, was well on her way to tipsy. It was a good thing they’d all taken the Tube into the city, as Matt returned with seconds for everyone.

Dom picked at the label of his new bottle, glancing after his dad. Here they were, about to leave at the break of dawn the next morning, and nothing had been resolved at all. He took a deep breath, stood up, and pushed his way through the crowd to the patio overlooking the Thames.

Austin stood at the railing beyond the tables, an ashtray balanced on the rail beside him. No one else was out on this side of the building, though voices carried down the alleyway from the street side. Dom joined him, watching the lights of London sparkling on the opposite shore. The wind off the river was damp and cold, and Dom pulled his jacket a bit tighter. Austin tapped his ash into the tray, the fag still nearly whole, likely the second one since he’d come out here.

“How can you do that?” Dom finally said, nudging the ashtray away from himself. “You’ve been going like a chimney for days.”

Austin’s eyes darted briefly to him, then at the smoke in his hand. “Because I’m a fuckwit, obviously.” He crushed out the cigarette and breathed out a long, last stream.

“I remember when I brought you home from school that day, all those pamphlets they handed out and these… these great big tears in your eyes. As if I’d betrayed you, doing something I knew was bad for me. As if your mum never hounded me about it when you could hear.”

Dom said nothing, though he remembered it well, how the message simply hadn’t quite sunk in until that day in primary school, when the health teacher had done the big Don’t Smoke talk in the auditorium, and his dad – the science teacher – stood right there like a hypocrite. He’d allowed Dom to flush all the cigarettes down the toilet that evening after dinner, and hadn’t touched them again, as far as Dom knew, until a few years ago.

“You remember,” Austin asked, and lacking something to do with his hands, started tapping the packet of cigarettes on the railing, “When I got you the _Cutty Sark_ for your birthday? The ship I gave you yesterday?”

Dom nodded.

“You spent all those hours building it yourself… _days_ with the tweezers getting all the pieces just right, and every thread in place.”

Dom smiled faintly, “Never got the sails to stand though.”

“No. No, you didn’t,” his dad nodded, “And you smashed the bottle and cried. More than you did when you thought these things would kill me. More than you ever had when they set broken bones or you got knocked around by the bigger boys on the footie pitch.”

“I wanted to show you I could do it,” Dom said.

“I know,” His dad confessed. “For what it’s worth, those sails were a right pain in the arse. Cheap hinges. I wrestled with it for hours before I got it done. Nearly pitched it out the window myself.”

Dom gave this a huffed laugh through his nose and waited to see if this moment of reminiscing would lead anywhere.

“I..." Austin hesitated, and Dom’s gut flip-flopped before he went on, “I knew I was losing you by then, by the time Matt left home and we moved across town. I was still clinging to the boats and the bugs and that bloody fiasco with football…”

“I still like boats and bugs and football,” Dom said quietly, pocketing his hands, “I’m still the same person.”

“Yeah,” Austin smiled a bit, but then shook his head. “No. No, you’re not. What I meant to say the other night… and please don’t interrupt me, Dom? Can you let me stand here and make an arse of myself until I get this said, and get it right?”

Dom eyed at him carefully and nodded, oddly empathetic to his dad’s frustration, and surprised at how weirdly similar this was to he and Billy in the Starbucks, parsing in out in a public place to keep it from exploding. So many years apart and he’d forgotten how similar they’d always been.

His father exhaled, frosty in the cold air, looked at the cigarette packet in his hand before tossing it in a bin behind him, and leaned on the wrought iron railing and clamping both hands together in front of his mouth in thought. “It used to be so easy with you, both you and Matt, when you were little. I’d speak and you’d listen. I’d teach you, and you’d learn, and you _wanted_ to hear what I had to say. You were so full of curiosity and wonder, and I got to be the one who showed everything to you.

“Except, I couldn’t keep you from learning about the bad things, the scary things the world has to offer. That’s what I meant about the right things, Dominic. I didn’t teach you both sides of the coin sometimes. And I couldn’t keep you from seeing them. The crowd your brother started running with, and that friend of yours."

His father looked pointedly at him, “It wasn’t Cullin I didn’t like, Dom, but the environment he came from. Don’t think we didn’t suspect things about his family life. Your mother and I… even the faculty at school. You wouldn’t think it, but teachers do pay these things attention. It wasn’t the way it should have been, and it… it scared me particularly, since he was your mate. You wouldn’t remember, but steps were taken. I heard someone, a social worker or a counselor, someone made a visit to him at some point but…. They said they had little to go on, that the boy was old enough to mind himself by then, and there was nothing to suggest he was badly treated.”

“Then they were wrong,” Dom said, anger festering hot in his gut. “If they’d paid him half the attention he needed them to… If they’d followed up like they should have–“

“I understand, Dominic,” Austin said, calmly, “I do. He was my student, and your friend. I was sorry when I heard what happened. I wondered if I didn’t do enough to help a boy who very much needed it, when it was in my power to do something. I wondered if my moving us – _you_ – away, if I was responsible. You have no idea the guilt that comes with that.”

“Try me,” Dom glared fiercely at him, eyes narrowed, biting off his words. “Try it with three in a year. You don’t have _any idea_ what it’s like.“

“All right, all right, I’m sorry, that was the wrong thing to say,” Austin lifted a hand to Dom’s shoulder, “You’re right, Dommie, I don’t know. Not the way you do.”

Dom closed his eyes, feeling his dad’s strong grip slip away, a vivid but brief reminder of affection. It was startling enough to hear the family pet name in his father’s voice for the first time in years.

“Can I finish?” Austin asked after a few moments.

Dom nodded, staring dully out over the river.

Austin exhaled thoughtfully before continuing, “It scared me, as I said. You were learning things I didn’t teach you, and you were forming your own opinions. And I mean that about more than just the one thing, Dom. It was hard enough with Matt, as sharp as he is, he moved away from me so quickly. I… I just wanted to keep you close, I suppose. I just wanted you to stay close to me when he ran the other way.

“And obviously I buggered that right up,” he laughed bitterly, looking remorseful, “I’m certainly no perfect father. I’ve spent all this time moping about how you and Matt didn’t turn out to be professors and doctors that I couldn’t stop and look at what you’ve become on your own. Getting into social work, helping kids. You did it for Cullin, don’t think I don’t know it. You followed your heart like you always have. I ought to be proud of you. I _am_ proud of you.”

“I’m not,” Dom said to his shoes, “I don’t help them all, I’ve lost too many.”

“You do more than most people would bother, and that’s saying something. You’re willing to try to fix what’s already broken, where most people would just toss that aside and start fresh.” He shuffled a bit, tucking his hands in his pockets. “Your friend in there is right, you’re a better man than most of us.”

“Billy,” Dom corrected automatically.

“Billy,” Austin relented, his eyebrows gathering as he added very quietly, “Your… boyfriend. Partner. I don’t know which word you like.”

“Either is fine,” Dom breathed, looking up and watching his father curiously. His head reeled a bit. This was his dad finally coming to terms with what he’d been told years ago. And try as he might, Dom could not exactly remember the point when he went from loving his father’s attention to resenting being pushed and challenged and generally prepared to be the best at his work, or for Billy or Sean or whoever else. To be the best for himself.

He looked out over the water, at people walking in groups across the nearest bridge, carrier bags in their hands. He knew that they were both at equal fault for this rift. Maybe he himself was the worse, letting all the animosity and blame and anger build over years, letting it become larger and blacker, only to find that his father didn’t really hate him at all.

“Three, in a year?” his father asked suddenly. “You mean kids that have–”

Dom closed his eyes briefly and nodded.

“There was the one – your mother said – early this year, and the one on the news in September… There was another?”

“Last month,” Dom’s voice cracked the slightest bit over the words, and he cleared his throat, “Ryan. He was a year old, almost.”

“Christ,” Austin murmured under his breath. “Your friend said… Billy said you took it hard. He said you never turn it off, this need to put people back together again.”

Dom looked back at him, “He told you this?”

“He told your mother. I can’t pretend I wasn’t listening, though. He’s…”

“He’s what?” Dom prompted.

Austin looked sheepish, chuckling, scrubbing a hand through his beard. “He’s something, all right.”

“Yeah,” Dom grinned at his shoes. “He is.”

They listened to the ambient sounds of London for several beats, before Austin shook his head and asked, “Are you happy, son?”

And that shattered Dom’s resolve in a heartbeat, relief flooding him as if a dam had broken somewhere, held in check until this moment. His breath left him as if he’d been holding it for the past four days. His eyes went hot, that his father cared to ask.

“Yes,” he muttered, took a deep breath and repeated it, stronger, “Yes, I am.”

Austin pulled him around and into a tight hug. “Then let me be happy for you.”

Dom crumpled against his father’s shoulder, his own arms coming up and out of his shock to cling tightly back. He’d never expect this, to be invited and welcomed and embraced back into the family he’d run from, to be held tightly in his dad’s arms for the first time since he was a boy, and finally accepted.

“Oh, brilliant, hugs all around!” Matt’s voice broke obnoxiously from the door, his arms spread wide to grab them both.

“Piss off,” Dom grumbled when his dad let him go, turning away and scrubbing his face on his sleeve.

“Ugh, Bill, don’t look at that, man, it’s ugly. Then you’ll leave him and this would all be for naught.”

“Not really,” came Billy’s voice, glowing warm with a smile, “First time I really said I loved him out loud was after he’d gone all blousy on me like that. ‘Course, he doesn’t remember, he was asleep.”

Dom grinned so hard his damp cheeks felt like they’d crack in the chill. He remembered exactly the night Billy was talking about. “I wish I did,” he said, turning back to look at Billy’s face and seeing all the understanding he knew would be there.

“Does this mean I get to be back at the top of the shit list?” Matt asked, “I try so hard, Dad, it’s only fair.”

“Inside, Matt,” Austin laughed, pushing his older son through the pub door. “You never left it, far as I can tell.”

“Are you sure? I mean, I could hook up with that cute assistant teacher of yours… Hey, can I have fifty quid? Dad?”

Billy ambled closer when they were left alone, reaching up to brush the remaining shimmer from Dom’s cheek with his thumb, and tugged him close and speaking lowly. “I whispered it against your skin that night, over and over. You’ve no idea how lovely you are when you let the weight of the world come off your shoulders. I couldn’t take my eyes off you in the morning.”

Dom grinned, “And then we had our first fight.”

“Mmm-hm,” Billy arched a wicked brow, pushing him into the dim of the pub’s alley, “I’m fairly sure we were naked as well.”

Dom whinged a little, “This holiday doesn’t have enough nakedness.”

“I completely agree,” he murmured against Dom’s lips and Dom opened to him willingly. He was slowly backed up against the alley wall, cold from the brick seeping through his jacket, but a more encompassing warmth pressed to his front, held in by the woolen lapels of Billy’s peacoat and his hot mouth working sweet, sharp little nibbles along Dom’s earlobe and jaw, his hands grasping underneath Dom’s jacket.

“Didn’t you win some sort of prize in there?” Dom asked randomly.

Billy grinned, teeth against skin, his fingers trying to wriggle underneath Dom’s belt, his voice falling into a low purr, “Someone else can have it.”

“There’s no snogging allowed, you freaky gayboys! This is Chiswick, not Leicester Square,” Matt bellowed loudly from the corner, grinning his handsome face off, “God, think of the scandal!”

Billy’s forehead dropped to Dom’s shoulder with an exasperated chuckle, his fingers reluctantly slipping out from beneath denim. Dom rolled his eyes, smiling when Billy put a little more space between them and said, “You know, I wouldn’t mind at all if you roughed him up for me, just a little.”

“In the name of your honour?” Billy clarified.

“Yeah, that.”

“Right then,” Billy cracked his neck and strode purposefully toward a wide-eyed Matt, tightening his fists.

“Shite,” Matt breathed and bolted for the street. “Oi, I give! Don’t hurt me!” He cried as Billy had him caught well before he’d got far and pinned him face first against a brick storefront.

“Your call, love,” Billy nodded when Dom had caught up, “Should I spare his face or his dignity?”

“My face! I don’t have any dignity!” Matt wailed and struggled a bit, but Billy held him firm.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dom pretended to dwell on the decision, “Mum will want an open casket. He is very pretty.”

“I’m totally pretty!”

“Right.” Quick as a flash, Billy had Matt’s jeans around his knees. He wore Homer Simpson boxers, which barely clung in place.

Turning him loose, Billy clicked his tongue with disappointment, “You know Dom, he might be pretty, but you’ve got the better arse.”

“Oh, whatever,” Matt grumbled, red faced as he pulled up his trousers, grinning as wolf-whistles came from a large group of pub-crawlers across the street, “You didn’t even get a good look at my arse. Hey!”

Dom and Billy had turned back to their pub, and Matt ran to catch up, arms around both their shoulders. “What’s say we ditch the rents and have some real fun?”

“What, around here?” Dom looked up the street at the ridiculous American style cowboy club.

“Shit, no, are you dead?” Matt knuckled Dom’s head. “We’re catching a cab to Soho, little bro.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strangers on a train.

_Tuesday, December 27th_

The sudden wailing of a baby from the seats behind jogged Dom from a doze, sitting up awkwardly from where he’d been slumped against Billy’s shoulder.

“Time is it?”

“Half five,” Billy answered, without looking at his watch and still watching the countryside fly by. “Twenty minutes till we get in.”

Dom rubbed at the crick in his neck and drew his foot out of the aisle where children ran back and forth. As they’d expected, traveling after the holiday was a chaotic ordeal of getting up before dawn and saying goodbye to Dom’s parents, catching the Tube to Euston, then waiting for seats to open up on a train going more or less the right direction.

Unsurprisingly, the direct route to the Galloway and Dumfries region included several stops and train changes, and its run was cut down to only once a day during the holiday period. They put their names in for possible standby seats, but after several hours of waiting and putzing around the crowded station only to get nothing, they ended up opting for a non-stop train to Edinburgh.

Billy navigated the huge Euston station with ease, finding the appropriate platform with little trouble. Dom just blindly followed, already exhausted and cursing Matt for suggesting they go out clubbing when they knew full well they had an early morning, keeping a hold of the back of Billy’s sleeve so they wouldn’t be separated.

Between the crying babies, rowdy kids and general mayhem, Dom barely managed to catch short naps during the ride. He didn’t think Billy had rested up at all, during the night or the ride. He’d spent much of the journey as he was now, staring out the window and systematically taking his nails down to the nub with his teeth. His eyes were glassy and dark underneath, his skin pale, his hair dirty.

Dom rumbled a laugh, brushing at the sparkle in Billy’s hair, evidence of silly fun from the night before. Billy turned from the window at the touch. “You still have glitter in your hair.”

A small smile broke over Billy’s face as he scrubbed a palm through it and looked at the glittering residue, then back at Dom, “You’ve still got that girl’s eyeliner on you. It’s all smudgy now, though. I think I hate your brother.”

“I hate my brother,” Dom said rubbing at the ache of his own head, “Bastard’s probably still sleeping it off. It was fun, though. You had fun.”

“Aye, it was fun. It was… not what I expected. Well, it was, but it wasn’t.”

Dom grinned, “What did you expect?”

Billy just shook his head. “It wasn’t what I thought, that’s all. I never spent a lot of time in places like that when I was… well, when I was as young as most of the kids in that club.”

“Old man,” Dom teased, nudging Billy’s shoulder. “You never did? Never even found the gay bars wherever you happened to be?”

Billy shrugged, “Oh, I knew where they were, yeah, but I didn’t spend a lot of time on the pull, back then,” he flicked his eyes to Dom’s, gauging his reaction and grinning a little sheepishly, “Shocking, eh?”

“I… no, I just wonder why, that’s all.”

Billy turned back to the window, thinking for a bit before answering that. “I never would have admitted this then, but probably because I was scared to death.”

“Why, Bills?” Dom whispered.

Billy shrugged a shoulder, “When I was fighting, if it got around that I was queer… well, you can imagine what would have happened to me. There were times when I thought it had; maybe that was how I got my arse kicked that one time, I don’t know. But after, even years after I stopped… Well, you remember how it was. You’d still hear about people getting beat up, getting killed for it.” He looked at his hands in his lap, spreading his fingers and then curling them to fists. “I’d fight back, Dommeh, you know I would. Either way it wouldn’t have ended well.”

Dom nodded, taking one of Billy’s hands in his own. “What about later, when you lived with Bean? I mean, he knew, he didn’t care.”

“No, he didn’t care, but then Bean’s a rare bastard, isn’t he,” Billy smiled fondly. “It was better then. Still, I didn’t bring lads round to his house. If I was getting some, it was at theirs, or else in a car or summat. I didn’t have my own bedroom, you know, I kipped on Bean’s sofa.”

“Must be why you’re always napping on ours,” Dom grinned.

“Your sofa is comfy, comfier than his was,” Billy chuckled, then glanced up, “Sad, eh? My prime was pretty well spent in the closet, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, I don’t know, this all appears to be to my benefit,” Dom waggled his eyebrows. “Your libido’s survived years of frustration, after all. And presenting you with a club full of pretty boys rubbing up against each other seemed to be… stimulating enough.”

“It did that,” Billy leaned closer, dropping his voice under the constant train noise, “You were so fucking sexy last night, Dommeh.”

“I do try,” Dom fluttered his lashes demurely.

“You succeed,” Billy answered, “I love the eyeliner, by the way. Nice girl, to loan you some.”

“She was, wasn’t she? I couldn’t walk into the London gay scene looking like I dressed up to please my mum, could I? Which I did.”

“Your mum loves you. And your dad does too,” Billy smiled, hooking his arm around Dom’s shoulder. “And maybe even your brother does, though I’m not sure on that.”

Dom said nothing, but leaned into Billy again as the farmsteads and fields gave way to more and more houses out the train window. Dom still didn’t know what to make of it, this new understanding of his family and where he fit into it. This morning his father had stood there in pajamas and hugged him, held him, invited him and specifically Billy back, sooner rather than later. Dom imagined later in the morning, maybe while having his coffee, his dad probably discovered a certain amount of glitter on those pajamas from last night’s shenanigans transferred over. He wondered what he thought of the eyeliner that was still on his face, if he was just going to shrug and finally accept it, if he was going to say it out loud to the kids he taught. It was surprising and hopeful and somewhat scary, a big change to find his place in, but it was good and had lifted a tremendous weight off of him.

But some fear was still there, as they made their way closer to their destination and to Billy’s turn in all this. How would it be if Dom got his reconnection and acceptance, and Billy’s went badly wrong?

Dom woke from a half-doze again as the train finally pulled into Edinburgh Station. They queued out with the rest of the passengers, and then Billy pulled Dom in the opposite direction of most of the crowd and towards the station’s essentials shop, asking for a shower kit. He was passing over the coins for towels, a bar of soap and tiny bottle of shampoo before Dom fully caught on.

“Billy, what…? There’s a hotel just across the way there. We’ll just check in and have some dinner–“

“No, Dom.”

“–We’ll clean up and go to sleep and drive the rest of the way in the morning, we have plenty of time–“

“No, Dom!” Billy’s head whipped round on him, hands squeezing the towels in their plastic wrapping, the packet of soap slipping to the floor. He stooped to snatch it up, huffing and warily eying the security guard who had looked in their direction at Billy’s raised voice over the hubbub of the crowds and music. Billy swallowed, pushing one of the wrapped towels at Dom and speaking more quietly. “We’re here, you got me here, and I need to… I just need to get it done.”

“All right, but–“

“No,” Billy turned, hitching his rucksack up on his shoulder and headed towards the men’s showers. Dom sighed, shook his head and fumbled with the sticky handle of his rolling suitcase to follow.

He found Billy already rid of his clothes and stuffing them into a locker, the towel slung round his waist. “Man, when you get it in your head that you want something…”

Billy shut the locker and rounded on him, fiery and defiant, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Easy, Bills,” Dom soothed, shrugging out of his jacket and pulling off his shirt. “Just… you. There’s no stopping you sometimes when you’ve got an idea in your head. You’re always so bloody persistent.” He grinned, shoving his own clothes and suitcase into the larger locker just below Billy’s and not bothering to cover himself, “Not necessarily a bad thing, is it?”

Billy’s gazed fell along his body, and his stance relaxed a little, “Behave, you.” He muttered, and turned to the showers.

Dom laughed, shaking his head as he followed.

The shower room was steamy and the water hot, and for several minutes Dom lost himself in the bliss of washing the day away, letting the heat pummel his aching neck. They didn’t chat much, with a few other travelers in the showers with them, but passed the bottle of shampoo and bar of soap between themselves. Dom watched Billy surreptitiously as he washed, the large space of a public shower supplying a different, oddly removed view of Billy. He washed efficiently with no qualm or care of others in the space. Dom smiled a little at the rivulets of glitter coming off of him from last night’s escapades (and remembered to scrub the eyeliner from his own face). He catalogued the dark auburn color of Billy’s hair when wet, the way the length of it clung nearly to his brows and the top of his spine, the gathering of biceps as his arms rose to push it back. Thumbing the water from his eyes and shaking it from his hair, Billy twisted his taps off, dried with his towel and left Dom to finish alone.

Afterward, Dom felt far more awake and refreshed than he would have imagined using a train station shower. He dried off, scrubbing the thin towel through his own overgrown hair, and opened the locker in search of fresh clothes. Billy stood before the mirror, still only clad in the towel, staring at his reflection, his expression odd and faraway.

“What do you see in me, Dom?”

Dom looked up, startled at such a question as he buttoned up his jeans. “What?”

Billy stood up straight, still looking at himself. “What do you see, when you look at me?”

Glancing around the nearly empty locker room, Dom approached to stand just behind him and look at their reflections, a bit unsure of what Billy wanted to hear.

“The last time I stood at this mirror, I looked much different,” Billy said, running a hand over his stomach, then raising it to rub the little scar on his chin. He smirked a little, moving his fingers to his hairline, where his hair was curling up in the moist air. “Had a bit more up here, for one thing. Even by then I’d been gone for years already.”

“Billy,” Dom sighed.

“I used to fight here, round this station. Down under the tracks, in the alleys. Used to fight and then come up here, clean myself up. I used to look much different in this mirror.”

“You’re not the same person anymore. You’re better now.”

“Am I?”

Dom stepped in a little closer. “The last time you looked in this mirror, maybe you had more hair. Maybe you had fewer scars, fewer wrinkles. Maybe you even had cut abs instead of this soft little tum.” He teasingly poked Billy in the gut.

“That’s down to your cooking, by the way,” Billy smiled faintly.

“You know what you have now that you didn’t then?” Dom asked, curling his arms around Billy’s shoulders, resting his chin on the left one.

“What?”

“A whole lifetime’s worth of the world at your feet,” Dom murmured. “You look like a man who’s lived through a lot of shit and triumphed, Bills. That’s what makes you beautiful to me.”

He pressed a soft kiss behind Billy’s ear, and turned to pick a shirt from his luggage.

“What will she see?” Billy still hadn’t turned from the mirror.

Dom finished buttoning his shirt and looked back up, knowing he couldn’t give the answer Billy wanted to hear. He sighed, pulled Billy’s bag from the locker and picked out some clothes for him and held them out. “She’ll see you.”

They left the showers and crossed the station to stand in the long line for car rentals, full of travelers clinging to baggage and boxes full of gifts, bored children clinging to parents’ legs and crying, or else playing with each other, even without know each other’s names. Dom watched them, happy kids clutching their favorite Christmas presents. At home, Sean would have attended gift handouts at local shelters and soup kitchens. Justin would have celebrated Christmas with probably more presents than he’d ever had, but without his baby brother.

They rented a small sedan and piled in, Dom taking more than a moment to remember how to drive a car with the wheel on the proper side.

“So you can actually drive a car, right?” Billy teased.

“’Course I can.”

“Just not in New York.”

“Would you drive in New York?” Dom prompted, raising a suspicious eyebrow.

“No. I can’t anyway,” Billy answered. “Well, I can, I mean I know how, but I never got a thing. License.”

“All right then. Get out your letter. I’d let you put the address into the GPS, but something tells me your fear of all things technological would cause problems.”

Billy pulled the letter from his pocket and let Dom punch the address into the screen, and within seconds the route was calculated.

Dom put his hands on the wheel and turned to Billy, “Ready?”

Billy inhaled deeply. “As I’ll ever be.”

“Let’s do this.”

As directed, Dom pulled out of the rental area car park onto the requisite streets, and then onto the A71 toward the rapidly setting sun.

Nearly three hours later, as Dom pulled the car up the long winding road, the tip of a lighthouse came over a slight rise, its light shining in the dark, shrouded now and then in low hanging curtains of fog coming off of the sea, and then the small spread of the hotel’s modest few buildings.

He looked at Billy as he parked, silent as he’d been nearly the whole drive and staring intently out the window. When Dom slid his hand over and grasped the hand curled in a nervous fist on his thigh, Billy started a little, but then turned and opened his hand so their hands could twine together.

“All right, Bills?” Dom whispered.

Billy shrugged, feigning an air of calm, though his hand was clammy and hot. “She may not even be here. Maybe on holiday herself. Maybe…”

“Maybe,” Dom murmured.

Billy took a huge breath, released Dom’s hand and got out of the car. Dom followed, leaving their baggage for now.

Billy’s eyes scanned the surroundings, the winter wind from the sea biting at his cheeks till they were rosy, listening to the sounds of the ocean crashing into the rocks not far away from the whitewashed main building. Its walls shone even in the moonlight, the trim gold and black and bright enough that it must be carefully painted to year after year from the blowing wind and salt.

“Nice place, this,” he said to the wind, knowing Dom stood at his shoulder, “Might be a bit out of our price range.”

Dom looped an arm around his neck. “We certainly don’t have a reservation, anyway.” Billy’s heart hammered beneath his hand, his breath hanging in the cold air. Dom murmured close to his ear, “You know I’m right behind you the whole way, Bills. No matter what happens.”

“Me and you.”

“You and me. Up a tree.”

Billy gave a strangled giggle and took a purposeful step toward the entrance.

A bell tinkled overhead as they stepped into an immaculate foyer, fireplace crackling and stuffy armchairs and thick rugs holding the Scotch chill at bay. A grandly carved antique desk stood before them, a few pens and sheaves of paper and a leatherbound registrar as well as a computer on its surface. The chair behind it was draped with a yellow cardigan, and beyond that, an office and a light on within. Dom hung back, letting Billy move alone to the center of the foyer.

“Be out in just a moment!” a soft woman’s lilt called out. Billy drew a breath, frozen where he stood.

The woman strode out with a cup of tea in hand and a friendly smile on her sweet face, “Well, you’re checking in late, we’re about to close the doors for the–“ Her words vanished as she looked up and stopped in her tracks behind the desk.

Dom held his breath, feeling witness to something private and sacred, a moment that had the potential to be anything and go any direction. A memory flitted across his mind of seeing Billy turn around in the middle of a crowded airport, the way the whole world had slowed down.

“Hello, Maggie.”

The teacup rattled precariously against its saucer in Maggie’s hands until she set it carefully down, still shaking visibly and moving out from behind the desk.

“Jesus,” she murmured very quietly, her hands clasping each other nervously until she reached one out to him, “Come here, let me… let me see you.”

Billy did as instructed, moving tentatively closer until he stood before her in the firelight.

She blinked profusely, raising a hand to his cheek. “So, it’s really you, then.”

Billy broke his stillness in an instant and rushed into her arms. His voice was a muffled, quiet mantra of “I’m sorry” against her shoulder.

Dom’s heart filled and broke for Billy at once. Tears streamed down his face. He raised a hand to wipe them and sniffled quietly, but it was loud enough to break the moment as Maggie’s eyes found him over Billy’s shoulder, hovering just inside the doors. He shook his head hastily and waved her away, not wanting to intrude. This was Billy’s.

But Billy turned to him as well, his own eyes glistening and his expression pinched. “Dom, get over here.”

Dom stayed still. He had never, ever believed he’d see Billy cry.

“C’mere to me, Dommeh, please,” Billy held out his hand, “My sister.”

Dom scrubbed his face on his coat sleeve, knowing he looked utterly ridiculous, put out his hand and did a horrible job trying to steady his voice. “H’lo Margaret.”

She took his hand and to his surprise, hugged him tight as well.

“This is Dominic, Maggie,” Dom heard Billy’s voice, “He brought me back to you.”

Dom attempted to protest this, but Maggie wouldn’t let him go, thanking him heartily. He returned her embrace nervously until she released him and looked them both over. “My god, you two didn’t just come off a plane from New York?”

“No,” Dom found his voice, “A train from London, though.”

“Well, look at me, minding a hotel and I don’t even let you rest up before I sob all over you,” she chided herself, mopping her own eyes and turned back to the desk, and then paused mid-stride to gaze at Billy again, “I didn’t think you’d come.”

Billy dropped his eyes to the floor shamefully, “I didn’t think I would. I…” he trailed off and shuffled his feet, refusing look back up.

Dom saw guilt dripping from him as though he’d like to melt through the floor and be done with all of this, to turn tail and run. Now came the talking and catching up and finding out every little thing he’d missed, and it would just continue to pile on over his head. He clasped Billy’s shoulders, trying to keep him from going down that road. “Bills, love, not now, all right? You don’t have to get into it now. We should have a rest, hmm? There’s plenty of time.”

Billy’s eyes shot back up to Dom full of fight and rebuttal, but Maggie’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “Yes, you’re exhausted. Let me put you up in a room and we can–”

Billy smiled falsely and nervously, “We’re okay, just a long drive. We meant to stay back in town anyway.”

“No, no, you’re here now. Let me get you a bed, at least. We’re not full up, most of them checked out on Boxing Day,” she answered, clicking the computer mouse next to her abandoned teacup.

“Maggie,” Billy’s tone hovered somewhere between long suffering and mildly hysterical, “I’ve been… My god, it’s been twenty years, and you want me to just go to sleep?”

Maggie stopped what she was doing, came back around and hugged him fiercely again, though his arms stayed drooped and helpless at his sides. When she pushed him back again, she said, “I want to see my brother, and ask you where in the world you’ve been, and have you answer without believing I’ll turn you back out on your arse outside the room you’re barely standing upright in. All right?”

Billy hung his head again, the set of his brows and shoulders betraying his total exhaustion, and when he didn’t refuse her, she returned to the desk.

“Put that away,” she glared at Dom sternly when he pulled out his wallet. “No, and don’t you dare argue. It’s not as though I’ll be answering to anyone when there’s hardly anyone here in the first place.”

She insisted on the best suite that was available, and carted their baggage herself as she showed them in. Their suite was separate from the main building, warmly decorated and more than they needed, with a sitting area and even had a private ocean-facing breakfast sunroom. Dom thanked her half a dozen times.

“Enough,” she finally shut him up, turning to Billy again, “And you, sleep? Please? We’ll talk in the morning, hmm?”

Billy relented awkwardly, looking far older than he was. It was painfully clear he was unraveling at the seams.

Billy gave a long heavy breath as she shut the door behind her, and turned away from Dom, his hands surreptitiously wiping his face.

“Hey,” Dom tried. Billy didn’t turn. Dom came around, pulled him into a tight hug and didn’t let up for several minutes.

Without letting go, Dom walked him backward to the bed and sat him down, then bent wordlessly to pull off Billy’s shoes and clothes, and then his own. He lay down himself, knowing Billy would follow. They settled under the sheets, Billy wormed into his side with his nose tucked under Dom’s jaw.

“She’s so much older,” Billy finally spoke, his voice stricken in the dark.

Dom smiled against his hair, “So are you.”

“I wasted so much time.”

“I guess we both did,” Dom murmured, and closed his eyes.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confessions of a selkie.

_Wednesday, December 28th_

Dom woke with the sun, and found Billy beside him still so thoroughly out that instead of whistling he was snoring rather loud, his mouth open and lax. He lay still for several minutes, watching Billy’s eyes flit beneath his lids, wondering what he was dreaming. A light touch to his cheek had him turn on his side toward Dom so he could breathe more clearly, but he stayed quite asleep.

Sliding out of bed, he pulled up the extra blanket and tucked it around Billy’s shoulders. He dressed warmly in jeans and a heavy jumper and then dawdled quietly around the room for a while, taking the homey décor that gave the place less resort extravagance and more simple, quaint ocean-side inn appeal. Pulling on his shoes and coat and checking again that Billy didn’t seem likely to wake, he slipped out to walk around the grounds.

The morning air was very cold, but thick and salty and startlingly fresh. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it, having been so long in New York’s smoggy haze. Gazing out over the ocean, he remembered that the last time he’d breathed this cleanly had been on a ship off the coast of New Zealand.

The Scottish coast was remarkably similar, even in its sharp winter. The dark cliffs on which the lighthouse stood were deep mossy green, frost clinging to the short tufts of grass like pearls, and boulders of granite jutting from the hillsides as if they’d fallen from some forgotten god’s hand. The sun glazed everything with a lemony tone as it hovered just above the horizon, and everywhere echoed the sound of the earth breathing as the sea rose and fell against the rocks. Dom lifted his face to the cold wind and closed his eyes. Finally, this was starting to feel like a holiday.

“Dominic?”

He turned to find Maggie, bundled in a woolen coat and scarf, picking her way toward him. “It is Dominic, isn’t it? I’m sorry if I’ve forgotten already, it’s just...” she gestured back toward their cabin where Billy slept, implying her surprise.

“Yeah. Just Dom is fine, though,” he offered a hand to steady her over the uneven ground in her dressy shoes. He couldn’t help but stare, studying her, finding the similarities between them. She didn’t look quite so much like Billy now as she did in Billy’s photograph when they were children, but similar enough. “He’s still sleeping. Went out like a light last night.”

“I thought so, he looked like the walking dead,” she laughed, breath puffing in the air. “Meanwhile, I’m all nerves now. I can’t believe it.”

“Neither can I,” Dom looked back at the sunrise, trying to quiet himself. There were a thousand things he wanted to ask her, to tell her, so much he want to hear and say all at once.

“So, you and he are…?” she said, the question left hanging.

Dom looked back, trying to gauge her reaction, though the answer must have been obvious when they’d taken a single room the night before. He knew very well how much Billy had worried over this point.

Maggie was far quicker than he was, however, and nodded with a smile. “How long have you been together?”

“Since August,” he answered, then added, “February, really. We met back then, it just didn’t… Well, that’s really for him to tell you, I shouldn’t…”

“I don’t mind, if that’s what’s worrying you,” she said easily, “I didn’t know he fancied the lads, but I’m not really surprised. It’s all okay with me. Besides,” she smiled back at him, “It’s obvious you care for him.”

Feeling the wind bite at the heat in his cheeks, Dom smiled shyly at the ground, scuffing his shoe on a rock.

“I’m glad,” she touched his arm to cast off his uncertainty. “I always wondered what sort of person would be able to handle him, really.”

Dom laughed out at the ocean, “He’s not my type.”

“No?”

“No,” he smiled at her. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Not anymore.”

She grinned, the bridge of her nose wrinkling exactly the way Billy’s did, and it sent a thrill through him to see it, and know they’d finally arrived here, and Billy was not as alone as he believed.

“So,” Dom asked, looking up at the lighthouse, its white pillar shining brightly in rising light, “This place is yours, eh?”

“Oh god, no, not mine,” she laughed, “I only manage the inn. It’s been owned by an estate syndicate for the last forty years, and of course the lighthouse is automated nowadays. There’s not a lot to it, really. Nice change up from the city, anyway.”

“It’s quiet here,” Dom said.

“Aye, it is. No traffic, no city noise. We only hear the bells and foghorns of the fishing trollers and the pleasure boats going back and forth. In summer, the seals gather up on the little beach down there by the sound, make a bit of a ruckus.” She took a deep, cleansing breath of the sea air herself, “Makes you feel small, doesn’t it?”

He stared back at her, amazed at the sentiment he’d heard so often before. “Yeah.”

Several yards behind them, a door clapped in its frame, and they looked back to find Billy standing on the steps of their little cabin, looking apprehensively after them as if caught eavesdropping and trying to blend into the background.

“Look at him,” Maggie breathed, “Like seeing a ghost.”

“Does he look like your parents?”

“A bit,” she answered, “But mostly he looks like himself. Trying to push against the world like always.”

Dom grinned and started back, squeezing Billy’s shoulder as he reached him.

“Morning. Did you sleep well?” Maggie asked as she came up.

Billy blinked at her, as if stunned she was real in the sunlight, “Aye, good as can be expected, I suppose.”

She arched her brows, “I could send out for a better bed, if it please your Majesty. We’ll have to see if breakfast is as good as could be expected as well.”

Billy stuttered out an apology, flushing even pinker than the brisk wind warranted. “Oh, come on, silly. As if that’s all it takes to upset me these days.” Maggie laughed, turning back to the path.

Dom chuckled and dropped a kiss to the back of Billy’s hair and gave him a gentle push to follow her back to the main building.

“I don’t know about this, Dom,” he fretted lowly, keeping a bit of distance behind her.

“I don’t either,” Dom answered. “We’ll just go one step at a time, yeah?”

Just then, a teenaged girl of about fourteen bounded through the main hotel doors with a half eaten piece of toast in her hand and a rucksack bouncing behind her. “Bye, Mum, I’m going!”

“Jamie, wait!” Maggie held her up. “Just for a minute.”

The girl stopped, heaving a very put-upon sigh as she pointed to the car that had just pulled up in the carpark, “Cass and her mum are waiting on me.”

“This is your Uncle Billy, Jamie,” Maggie introduced, “Remember, I told you he wrote to us?”

“Hi,” Jamie said politely. Billy didn’t answer, or couldn’t, frozen in the path and staring dumbly back at her with his mouth open, and after a moment the girl gave a fleeting glance back at her mother, clearly asking leave to go.

Maggie sighed, “All right, go on.”

“Thanks Mum!” Jamie ran past, “Later!”

“Call me, remember! And don’t you dare wander out of Mrs. Connelly’s sight while you’re there! I will find out if you do!” Maggie called after Jamie’s auburn ponytail, whipping in the wind.

“Uncle Billy,” Dom murmured, smiling faintly. Billy, however, stood glancing between the retreating car and Maggie, looking as if a hasty escape from all this was in order. Dom rubbed his shoulders from behind, “Hey. Relax, hmm? One of many surprises, I’m sure.”

“How do you expect me to relax?” Billy hissed back.

Dom pulled him back against his own chest and put a hand over Billy’s eyes. He stiffened and swatted it away once or twice until Dom tilted his head to Billy’s ear to murmur, “What is good, Bills?”

Billy stilled, slowly letting his tense shoulders drop. “The sound of the sea.” A groundskeeper hollered greetings across to Maggie, which she returned. Billy let Dom take more of his weight. “Hearing Scots voices again. You’re warm.”

Dom chuckled and took his hand away so Billy could see Maggie standing on the path in front of the hotel entry with the lighthouse behind, watching them with a smile. Billy inhaled a deep fortifying breath at the sight.

“Okay?” Dom whispered, tightening his arms around him. “Right behind you, Bills.”

In the inn’s restaurant, empty save for the three of them, they were swiftly brought a proper Scottish breakfast, as well as coffee and orange juice.

“There’s only the one older couple still here, taking a second honeymoon,” Maggie told Dom as she passed the marmalade, “They tend to sleep late, and we’ve no one else booked to come in for a few days, so it’s just us. Coffee?”

Billy gazed out the window at the carpark. “You have a daughter,” he wondered aloud, “What else have I missed?”

“Oh, Billy,” Maggie laid a hand over his on the table, “I’m sorry she sprung out on you like that. Had I known you were coming I would have made her stay. ‘Course, she wouldn’t speak to me for a month if I did that.”

“She looks just like you.”

“Mmm. And she acts just like you, the temper on her,” Maggie shook her head, “What possessed me to let her go to Edinburgh for Hogamany, I don’t know. The idea of a quiet holiday, I suppose.”

Billy pulled his eyes from the window and instead stared at his breakfast, watching his porridge plop from his spoon back into the bowl, “Where is her father?”

“No idea,” she said archly, as if she’d been expecting this question, “He took off as soon as he found out about her. I’ve not seen him since.”

Billy lifted his eyes, his face sliding through a myriad of emotions before his jaw clenched hard.

“Now, don’t get all worked up. It was ages ago, and trust me, we’re better off without him,” Maggie rebuked. “My god, you haven’t changed a bit, have you?”

Billy stabbed at a sausage with his fork, “She ought to have a father.”

“Right, because all kids who have two parents together are perfect little angels,” she said very pointedly, “Not to mention the task of finding a decent man who wants the bloody job, fathering a teenage girl whose life is meaningless without her mobile phone. When you find one, let me know. If you can let him have me without killing him first.”

Dom snorted as he bit into his toast.

“Shut up, Dom,” Billy groused irritably.

“I don’t know why I didn’t realize you were gay before,” Maggie grinned cheekily. “You never once took the slightest interest in any of my girlfriends, did you? But any time I ever spoke to a boy, did you ever bristle up and posture around. It all makes sense now.”

Billy set his fork down and clenched his hands under the table, refusing to meet either her eyes or Dom’s.

“No,” she said firmly, “Enough. Eat some breakfast. You’re going to be fed before we get deep into everything. You’re here now, and that’s all the matters.”

With a sigh, Billy picked up his spoon and set into his porridge.

  
•

  
Dom circled the last quarter turn of the wrought iron steps and arrived on the topmost landing. He leaned his hands on his knees for a minute, catching his breath from the long dizzying climb and two the last stretch two steps at a time up to the platform. The light itself was fully enclosed, padlocked and marked with warnings from the Scottish Lighthouse Board not to be tampered with. The day was clear for miles and so the light was off. He circled round it, sating his curiosity with the mechanics before trying the door to the outer balcony.

The wind was even colder up here, the salty air so biting to his overtaxed lungs from racing up the stairs that it made him cough, and he worked to slow it down and let the air stay long enough in his chest to warm. But the view up here was amazing, three hundred sixty degrees of rolling green, speckled with the tiny white backs of sheep from the surrounding countryside, the ocean grey and rolling, crashing against the black cliff faces below. On the pebbled grey beach to the east by the sound, he could see the honeymooning couple, walking slowly together, and on the rocky overlook above it, he could see Billy, sitting alone with his arms round his knees.

It had been noon before he’d asked to stop for a bit. Billy had lost the coin toss and so had begun to tell his side of the story, starting with life in the juvenile detention, of the ways he’d coped inside and of the social worker who had tried to bring him around, a man both he and Maggie roundly abused. He was brutally honest about living rough from city to city and fighting for a living, speaking in more detail than ever of every city in which he’d been, places he’d stayed, betting on himself and others, running from police, the viciousness of the fight. When he told of losing his last, of being beaten, broken and left, Maggie had teared up, and Billy had stood up and walked out to the knoll where he now sat.

“Is he angry with me?” Maggie asked, coming to the lighthouse rail to stand next to Dom. He hadn’t known she’d followed, and was surprised that it was him she came after rather than Billy.

He shook his head. Not only had those been the darkest and most fearful days of Billy’s life, it was also the closest to why he and Maggie had fallen out in the first place. It was Billy’s fierce temper manifesting in the only way he knew at the time to release it and protect himself. “Not with you,” he reassured her, “It gets better, after this. He’ll get better.”

She exhaled, relief, a little tear sliding down her nose. “He… There were times when we were afraid he was dead. I didn’t know. I just didn’t know how close he came to it, that’s all,” she gave a silly chuckle, wiping her face, “I’m not usually a weeper, but…”

“He’s your brother,” Dom finished.

“He is,” she nodded, turning to him. “You’re a mystery though, aren’t you?”

“Me?” Dom laughed.

“How did you get through to him? Who are you, that he’s being running from this for so long, and in just a few months with you, he’s shown up on my doorstep?”

Dom smiled wryly, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you I’m a social worker, would you?”

Maggie blinked, and then she laughed. She laughed until Dom was giggling along with her.

“Oh, if that isn’t irony, I don’t know what is,” Maggie said, wiping her eyes this time in mirth.

“I don’t know that I had that much to do with it,” Dom shrugged, “I pushed him too hard once, about you, and we had a huge row about it. He’s incredibly protective of you.”

“Don’t I know it,” she said, still chuckling a bit.

“My best mate rolled out the cannons on him for it, too, the two of them after that…” he shook his head, laughing. “But he worked through it on his own. He chose to write to you on his own. He wanted to come here. He just doesn’t like to look his past in the face.”

“Oh, he never did,” she nodded. They stood watching as Billy stood up with his hands in his pockets, the wind ruffling his hair as he gazed out at the sea. “Look at him, there,” she murmured, “He looks like he’d jump in and swim away, if he could.”

Dom laughed, “That must mean someone has his sealskin, right?”

“I think maybe _you_ do,” she grinned cheekily.

“Nah,” Dom grinned, absently fingering the jade at his throat. “He prefers a ship anyway.”

  
•

  
Maggie lived with her daughter in the old lightkeeper’s cottage next to the hotel. It was a tiny, but cozy little place, renovated to keep the winter chill at bay, full of soft furniture and firelit warmth. Billy had peeked into the room that clearly belonged to a teenage girl, full of girly coloured bedspreads and curtains and with posters of fresh-faced movie stars and boy bands. He gazed at length at the photographs in the hall of Jamie as she grew, Dom right behind him, silently offering support. Maggie had roast a lamb tenderloin for them, fresh courtesy the farm down the lane, and was putting the finishing touches on the dinner she’d prepared for them rather than stay in the hotel restaurant.

Plates were cleaned and cleared and after-dinner coffee poured. The rest of the story had come easier, faster, and last of it with smiles from all corners.

“And then you flew all the way to New York on a whim? And he found this mystical bloody guitar you were after?” Maggie laughed, “Oh, I can’t believe you. Of all the convoluted, ridiculous, stupidly romantic stories out there… if the two of you weren’t sitting in front of me I’d tell you you’re completely barking.”

Dom and Billy merely sat on the sofa, their fingers entwined and grinning through the blush.

“I thought I was a hopeless romantic,” Maggie said still giggling, “My oh-so-machismo little brother….”

“Hopeful,” they spoke at the same time, and laughed.

Still bubbling over occasionally with giggles, Maggie poured herself more coffee from the carafe on the table. “You ought to meet my best mate David. Him and his boyfriend would eat that right up.”

“Your best mate’s gay?” Billy asked.

She nodded, “Surprised?”

“No,” he snapped back quickly.

“Yes you are. You were all worried, weren’t you, that I’d kick you to the curb as soon as I had you figured,” she threw him a look. “Gay men are par for the course in the business I was in when I met David, so the pair of you are hardly a shock.”

Dom finally gave into his own curiosity. “What did you do, Margaret? What’s your story?”

“Maggie, Dom. I never hated it, not from family,” she corrected with a smile. “There’s not much to me, actually. I’d got into cosmetology school just before he left. I did hair for a few years, up until I found out I was pregnant. And that was a mistake from the getgo, that relationship,” she said, watching the vengeful look in Billy’s eyes, “That was me attempting to hang on to my twenties – he was younger. And it was never solid with him, either. He was a fuckwit anyway, so there’s no need to go searching the country for him, Billy. He’s probably got himself locked up already for stealing someone’s telly or summat equally idiotic. I can’t say much for my taste back then. But then Jamie was born and everything changed.”

“She’s beautiful,” Dom said, looking at the photo on the end table. She must have been around six in it, riding a pink bicycle with streamers on the handlebars that mirrored her auburn pigtails in the wind, her face lit with absolute glee. She looked very much like the little girl in Billy’s photograph at home.

“She is,” Maggie glowed. “Might have been a mistake, but she’s not one I regret. Anyway, afterwards, I worked full time and went to business school at night, and eventually got into hairdressing at some fancy hotel spas. That’s where I met David, one of the high-end places in Glasgow, out in the theater district. From there, it went from managing the spas to managing the hotels themselves.”

“You did all that with a baby?” Dom asked, impressed.

“Aye well, Gran helped, of course, when Jamie was little. She minded her while I was away at work, up until she started primary. And that’s really what we’ve done since.” She lit up after a moment, “My god, we’ve got to go see Gran now that you’re here.”

“No. I don’t want to go to Glasgow,” Billy immediately shook his head, hitching a thumb at Dom, “I won’t have this one paying more on this holiday than he already has.”

Maggie was clearly bemused, “What do you mean, Glasgow?”

“You know I hated it, Maggie,” Billy said with an annoyed frown, “The way she made us go see Mum and Da’ every Sunday. I didn’t need to go set flowers on a grave to make my peace with them, and I don’t need to do the same with Gran.”

“On a grave..." Maggie repeated, comprehension dawning in her face, “Billy, Gran’s still alive.”

Billy smiled slightly, as though she was having him on, “That’s not possible.”

“She’ll beg to differ with you, I’m afraid,” Maggie raised her eyebrows, “Seeing as she’ll be ninety-eight in a fortnight.”

At this Billy went very still, searching her face for the lie that wasn’t there.

“It’s part of why we came here, instead of some of the other places I could have managed,” Maggie explained, “She’s got her own little flat at a home in town. I couldn’t look after her and Jamie and still work full time anymore, and the third time she accidentally left a pot burning on the stove… Well. She’s got people around all the time now that help her with the cleaning and cooking, and she can go to the Common and play cards and watch old films and take little walks around the little park they’ve got there. It’s a lovely place. She’s quite happy.”

Billy shifted fretfully in the quiet before she continued, “When I told her you’d written over Christmas… ’About time, too. Tell him he’s going to catch hell.’ She’s still sharp, you know, but sometimes she forgets how much time has gone.”

Pulling his hand from Dom’s, Billy rose from the sofa, leaving through the French doors at the back of the cottage to stand on the porch overlooking the waves, his hands clutched at the back of his neck.

Maggie looked after him, half rose to follow, and then sat back down. “Shite. All this time he’s thought Gran was dead and gone?”

Dom bit his lip, nodding as he looked after him. “He always spoke like she was. I never considered she might still be around.”

“And now he thinks he owes her as well as me.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), it's always our self we find in the sea._ ~e.e. cummings

_Saturday, December 31st, New Year's Eve_

 _10:05am_

Billy stood with his hands deep in his pockets, wrapped in his peacoat. As much as he fit among the naked trees and the mist clinging over the park in the sleepy town of Stranraer, he still looked as though he didn’t quite belong in the damp heart of a Scottish winter. Like he was forever looking outward.

Dom let him be. The previous days had been quiet, Billy drawn more inward and pensive than Dom had ever known him. He and Maggie had conversations Dom was not privy to, and in turn Dom and Maggie spoke when Billy wanted to be alone. He ate and walked on his own over the grounds, staring out across the sea, deep in thought. When he returned looking for Dom, he clung, needing a simple connection to something familiar.

But the days of rest and soul searching had done their work. Maggie waved them over, having gone ahead to be sure Gran was ready for them. Billy looked up and walked back toward the groups of small flats that made up the senior home, looking tired and resigned. Nothing Dom could say would make this any easier, he knew. He felt nervous himself, aware this was as much like meeting Billy’s parents as it ever could be.

“Come on, lads,” Maggie encouraged quietly to both of them as they entered the flat. It was a very small space, but enough for one who seemed to live in happiness very simply. Gran stood in the sitting room, a tiny but only slightly hunched woman, with her thin gray hair pinned up. She wore no glasses, her eyes quite sharp even at her age, but the way she wrung her hands betrayed that she, too, might be quite nervous. But she stilled them, seeing Billy come in, his expression wary and ashamed, as though he thoroughly expected a talking-to.

“Well, now,” she said, her voice strong and lilting, beckoning him closer. Billy approached, and she took his shoulders in her thin, spotty hands. A smile broke on her wrinkled face. “You finally cut that awful hair.”

Billy blurted a surprised laugh, looking down at his toes, clearly something that had been just one, if a superficial bone of contention between them from so many years ago.

When she stepped forward and embraced him, her chin barely able to rest on his shoulder, Billy inhaled, slowly raising his hands to return it. Her chin trembled, but her voice was still strong as she said, “You could have phoned.”

“Sorry,” Billy murmured.

“I’m sure you are,” she patted his back, forgiving and accepting, leaning back again and looking him over more fully and pressing a hand to his scruffy cheek, “Goodness, you’re so like your father. You’ve got that same proper Scottish build he and your grandda' had, God rest them both. Come, take off that coat and sit. Oh! I should make tea.”

“I’ve got the kettle on already, Gran, you just sit down,” Maggie answered. Dom hung back at the front door by the kitchenette, and Billy’s eyes lit on him as they hung their coats, and Gran’s eyes followed as she settled back in her chintz armchair.

“That’s not ever you little friend, Geoffrey… Geoff… bugger, I can’t remember his last name now.”

“Christ, Geoffrey Shawcross,” Billy chuckled under his breath, urging Dom forward with a hand on his back. “No. This is Dominic. He’s… ah.” He glanced at Maggie nervously, who simply nodded from her place near the stove, and Billy bit his lip and muttered, “He’s my boyfriend.”

Gran glanced between them silently her thin eyebrows coming together, and then at Maggie who nodded again.

“I’m very happy to meet you,” Dom said quietly, offering his hand, which she shook, her grip light but firm.

“Yes, how do you do?” she returned politely. Her eyes were sparkling green, even brighter than Billy’s as she looked between them, and shook her head amiably with an understanding smile, “You were always such a sensitive boy, I suppose I should have known.”

Billy rolled his eyes as he sat with Dom on the flowery sofa, but Gran sparked right up at him, “Don’t make that face at me, lad. I’ve not sat here waiting for you for so many years to kick you out for that; I’m too old for petty prejudice anymore. But I don’t have to stand for your attitude, do I?”

“No, ma’am,” Billy murmured, properly chastised.

She giggled, a nearly girlish sound as Maggie brought in the tea tray and pulled a chair over from the small dining table. “Billy’s had a good deal of help from Dom, actually. Dominic works in child welfare in New York City, Gran.”

“Really?” she remarked with interest, her eyes lighting brightly on him again, “I imagine that’s difficult, dealing with the young people in that area? Not unlike Glasgow, I suppose.”

“It’s challenging, definitely,” Dom smiled, taking a sip of his tea.

“Mmm. Children are beings of light and emotion. When their parents passed on, the hospital sent out a young man to be certain an old woman like me could mind them properly,” Gran shrugged her thin shoulders, as if to say they did what they must, but unnecessarily, “He was an eager young man, poor fella. These two gave him quite the runaround, try as he did to get through to them.”

“He was an arse,” Billy muttered.

“He was a teacher,” she contradicted smartly, “Perhaps not of Maths and Literature, but of life and the coping with the very worst of it. You would’ve done better to listen to his advice,” she flicked her eyes to Dominic, cheekily. “But I see the second time’s the charm.”

Dom smiled a bit bashfully at his knees.

Gran set her tea down a reached into a basket beside her chair. “Look here,” she beckoned him to lean closer while she opened an album full of photos.

“Oh, _Christ_ ,” Billy whispered, earning a sharp look.

Dom looked eagerly while she flipped to the first page, pointing out the photos. “That’s me, when I was younger than you, I reckon, and my Jack, bless him. And this is William and Mary on their wedding day, and little Maggie when she was born, and here…. Ah.”

There was a whole page of photos of Billy as a boy, playing board games with Maggie, one holding a toad, dressed in a suit and pouting heavily, one in front of a square topped water tower. And one, with his father playing guitar, in which Billy was clearly singing at the top of his voice. Dom could not look hard enough, taking in the cant of his head and the wild shaggy hair, and the pure joy he took in singing.

“They were always good for a song, those two,” Gran remembered, “Like a pair of sparrows, you were. Look at your parents, Billy. They were so happy.”

She handed the album over and Billy obeyed, taking deep breath as he looked at the images of his past, flipping the pages. He fingered a blank space on one page, the photo corners still there. “I have the one that was here. I took it, the day I left.”

“I wondered,” Gran murmured. “You were a happy boy once. We’d made a good run of it, our little family. But God takes people as He may. Not out of spite or malice, it’s simply His way. That’s all.”

  
 _7:45pm_

  
Dom made his way down to the pebble beach in the frigid setting sun, clutching Billy’s coat in his fingers. He draped it over Billy’s shoulders when he reached him, sat as he so often was, staring out at the open water.

“It is winter, you know. In Scotland. Bloody freezing.”

“I don’t mind.”

Dom brushed the top of his head with his fingers, “Well, I do. I have to sit by you on the plane, and you’ll be sneezing and drippy and miserable. I’ll put up with you, but then I’ll be sneezing and drippy and miserable when we get home, and you’ll have to put up with me.”

Billy tipped his head back to Dom’s thigh briefly, and with a sigh pushed his arms into the coat sleeves.

They watched the tide for some minutes, the lulling sound of the waves a familiar nostalgia. _One day_ , Dom thought, _we’ll go back. The pair of us. We’ll go back to New Zealand together, and climb that same tree_.

“What is it, Bills,” he murmured, “What are you looking for out there?”

“I dunno,” Billy shrugged, wrapping his arms around himself in the wind, “I feel like… I’ve woven this shield round myself, this cloak that’s kept me safe for so long. And now I feel like it’s all coming unraveled. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Dom shifted the pebbles beneath his shoe, aware of the disquiet in Billy’s words. The sharp way he’d been drawn around himself since they’d arrived here, protecting everything laid bare, was beginning to loosen. Dom sat down in the gravel beside him. “It’s scary, changing everything you thought you knew about your life.”

Billy nodded once, eyes still far out along the horizon.

“The day I left the ship,” Dom said, his mouth turning up at the memory, “Bean told me something about you. He said, you live your life by two things. Hope, and the choice to take hold of it.”

“Bean said that?” Billy chuckled, shaking his head, “He’s an idiot.”

“He’s a barman. They see people. Bills,” Dom murmured, “There’s a big difference between the way things happened when you were a kid and what you’re going through now. You chose to... to pull that thread that started your cloak unraveling. You chose to come here.”

“You helped.”

“You chose to come to me.”

“You had my guitar.”

“You told me about it. You brought me my jacket outside your lounge.”

“You walked into my lounge.”

“You looked.”

“I fell.”

Dom had a breath to bounce back, but it caught, seeing Billy’s soft eyes turning on him in mock accusation, acknowledgment of that pesky serendipitous idea that neither over them had any control over anything in this life. Dom’s smile widened as he looked back out to sea. “Here we are, then.”

“Aye. Both of us a bit metaphorically naked, as it were.”

Dom lifted an eyebrow, “I’m fully decent, thanks.”

“Yeah?” Billy quipped. “Your dad loves you. See there? Look at you fretting over it already.”

“I have a lot of mistakes to make up for,” Dom fidgeted.

“So do I,” Billy shrugged. “But neither of us will ever be perfect, will we?”

Dom found Billy’s fingers and wove them together. “You have an overbite.”

“Your jaw is crooked.”

Dom leaned over to kiss him softly, his lips cold and dry, but smiling.

“I might as well go into this starkers, if I’m going to get use to it,” Billy said, tugging loose and slipping the _Manaia_ pendant over his head, and gave it to Dom. “I don’t think I need it anymore.”

Dom studied the carved creature, meant to protect and guard the lost. He’d never understood why he’d bought it that day in Christchurch. It only had so much meaning between them because Billy had given it such enormous purpose.

“How do you feel about going back to work?” Billy asked.

Dom saw the knowing look in Billy’s face and dropped his own, scraping his heels in the pebbles.

“Oi,” Billy murmured, bringing their heads together again, “Do you think I didn’t know what’s been eating you on this trip, my Dommeh? I was there the first time you lost your way.”

“You were,” Dom nodded, tracing the lines of the pendant with his thumb, he drew a deep breath of the crisp, clean salty air, turning over the thoughts he’d had over the last few weeks about the cost of his job on his heart. It shattered him each time he lost a child, that much was plain. It left him flayed and raw and aching. But each time, it slowly scarred over to a solid, everlasting reminder.

Underneath it all, it had been about the past, about people he’d lost long ago, about living up to an unrealistic ideal he’d built up in place of a father who did precisely what Dom did himself, who was unable to let the past go. A father that – and it would take him awhile to really believe it – was proud of what he did. It was still failure, to lose kids, and he’d struggle with that forever. But each time he’d pulled himself back together and tried again, driven by his own stubborn will and the strength he took from the man beside him. Scars, after all, were hurts that had healed.

“I hope it never comes to it,” he said, the pendant warm in his hands from Billy’s body heat, “But if it does, I hope you’ll keep helping me find my way back.”

“You know I will,” Billy’s fingers tugged on the double twist greenstone at Dom’s neck, “I’ve nowhere else to be anymore, but right here.”

Dom rested his forehead against Billy’s temple for a moment, then stood up and walked to the tide pulling the sea away from the pebbly shore. With a running start into the licking waves he drew back and launched the _Manaia_ as far as he could, losing sight of it against the waves.

Billy’s shoes crunched over the beach as he came to Dom’s side. There was no anger in his face at what Dom had done, only a little curiosity.

“It’s not mine anyway,” Dom told him, “Let it find its way to someone who needs it.”

Billy nodded agreement, curling an arm around Dom’s neck and shoulder, lending support and gaining some of his own. As the sun touched the horizon, the sea lit with gold.

  
**The End**   



End file.
